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SEA POWEK IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE 

WAR OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED 

AND TWELVE 

VOLUME I 




.vJ»**Hi 



'^^ 






SEA POWER IN ITS RELATIONS 

TO THE WAR OF 

1812 

BY 

CAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D. 

SEnttelJ states l^abg 

AUTHOR OF "the INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 1660-1783," "THE 

INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

AND EMPIRE," " THE INTEREST OF AMERICA 

IN SEA POWER," ETC. 



IN" TWO VOLUMES 

VOL. I 



BOSTON 
LITTLE, BROWX, AND COMPANY 

1905 

Co 



Copyright, 1903, 1904, 
By Charles Scribner's Sons. 

Copyright, 1905, 
By a. T. Mahan. 

All rights reserved 
Published October, 1905 



f Th£ LIBRARY OF '■' 
I CONQRFSS. 

' Two CoDiBS ^.6!:eJv<)C ' 

• OCT, 6 i9or> ; 

i Oasyrisrht Untrv 

" "■ '"" •^ ■>& Mm I 

I ^ '^ XX t 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBKIUOE, U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

THE present work concludes the series of " The 
Influence of Sea Power upon History," as 
originally framed in the conception of the author. 
In the previous volumes he has had the inspir- 
ing consciousness of regarding his subject as a positive and 
commanding element in the history of the world. In the 
War of 1812, also, the effect is real and dread enough ; but 
to his own country, to the United States, as a matter of 
national experience, the lesson is rather that of the influence 
of a negative quantity upon national history. The phrase 
scarcely lends itself to use as a title ; but it represents the 
truth which the author has endeavored to set forth, though 
recognizing clearly that the victories on Lake Erie and 
Lake Champlain do illustrate, in a distinguished manner, 
his principal tliesis, the controlling influence upon events 
of naval power, even when transferred to an inland body of 
fresh water. The lesson there, however, was the same as 
in the larger fields of war heretofore treated. Not by 
rambling operations, or naval duels, are wars decided, but 
by force massed, and handled in skilful combination. It 
matters not that the particular force be small. The art of 
war is the same throughout; and may be illustrated as 
really, though less conspicuously, by a flotilla as by an 
armada ; by a corporal's guard, or the three units of the 
Horatii, as bv a host of a hundred thousand. 



vi PREFACE 

The interest of the War of 1812, to Americans, has 
coinnionly been felt to lie in the brilliant evidence of high 
professional tone and efficiency reached by their navy, as 
shown by the single-ship actions, and by the two decisive 
victories achieved by little squadrons upon the lakes. 
Without in the least overlooking the permanent value of 
such examples and such traditions, to the nation, and to the 
military service which they illustrate, it nevertheless appears 
to tlie writer that the effect may be even harmful to the 
Ijeople at large, if it be permitted to conceal the deeply 
mortif3'ing condition to which tlie country was reduced by 
I)arsimony in preparation, or to obscure the lessons thence to 
l>e drawn for practical application now. It is perhaps use- 
less to quarrel with the tendency of mankind to turn its 
eyes from disagreeable subjects, and to dwell complacently 
upon those which minister to self-content. We mostly read 
the newspapers in which we find our views reflected, and 
dispense ourselves easily with the less pleasing occupation 
of seeing them roughly disputed ; but a writer on a subject 
of national importance may not thus exempt himself from 
the unpleasant features of his task. 

The author has thought it also essential to precede his 
work by a somewhat full exposition of the train of causes, 
which through a long series of years led to the war. It 
may seem at first far-fetched to go back to 1651 for the 
origins of the War of 1812 ; but without such preliminary 
consideration it is impossible to understand, or to make due 
allowance for, the course of Great Britain. It will be 
found, however, that the treatment of the earlier period is 
brief, and only sufficient for a clear comprehension of the 
five years of intense international strain preceding the final 



PREFA CE vii 

rupture ; years the full narrative of which is indispensable 
to appreciating the grounds and development of the quarrel, 
— to realize what they fought each other for. 

That much of Great Britain's action was unjustifiable, 
and at times even monstrous, regarded in itself alone, must 
be admitted ; but we shall ill comprehend the necessity of 
preparation for war, if we neglect to note the pressure of 
emergency, of deadly peril, upon a state, or if we fail to 
recognize that traditional habits of thought constitute with 
nations, as with individuals, a compulsive moral force which 
an opponent can control only by the display of adequate 
physical power. Such to the British people was the con- 
viction of their right and need to compel the service of 
their native seamen, wherever found on the high seas. 
The conclusion of the writer is, that at a very early stage 
of the French Revolutionary Wars the United States should 
have obeyed Washington's warnings to prepare foi war, 
and to build a navy ; and that, thus prepared, instead of 
placing reliance upon a system of commercial restrictions, 
war should have been declared not later than 1807, when 
the news of Jena, and of Great Britain's refusal to relin- 
quish her practice of impressing from American ships, 
became known almost coincidently. But this conclusion 
is perfectly compatible vnih. a recognition of the desperate 
character of the strife that Great Britain was waging ; that 
she could not disengage herself from it, Napoleon being 
what he was ; and that the methods which she pursued 
did cause the Emperor's downfall, and her own deliverance, 
although they were invasions of just rights, to wliich the 
United States should not have submitted. 

If war is always avoidable, consistently with due resist- 



^.jii PREFACE 



ance to evil, then war is always unjustifiable; but if it is 
possible that two nations, or two political entities, like the 
North and South in the American Civil War, find the 
question between them one which neither can yield without 
sacrificing conscientious conviction, or national welfare, or 
the interests of posterity, of which each generation in its 
day is the trustee, then war is not justifiable only ; it is 
imperative. In these days of glorified arbitration it cannot 
l)e afiirmed too distinctly that bodies of men — nations — 
have convictions binding on their consciences, as well as 
interests which are vital in character; and that nations, 
no more than individuals, -may surrender conscience to 
another's keeping. Still less may they rightfully pre- 
en<Tage so to do. Nor is this conclusion invalidated by a 
triumph of the unjust in war. Subjugation to wrong is 
not acquiescence in wrong. A beaten nation is not neces- 
sarily a disgraced nation ; but the nation or man is dis- 
graced who sliirks an obligation to defend right. 

From 1803 to 1814 Great Britain was at war with Na- 
poleon, without intermission ; until 1805 single handed, 
thenceforth till 1812 mostly without other allies than the 
incoherent and disorganized mass of the Spanish insurgents. 
After Austerlitz, as Pitt said, tlie map of Europe became 
useless to indicate distribution of political power. Thence- 
forth it showed a continent politically consolidated, organ- 
ized and driven by Napoleon's sole energy, with one aim, 
to crush Great Britain ; and the Continent of Europe then 
meant the civilized world, politically and militarily. How 
dcsj)ei"ate the strife, the author in a previous work has 
striven fully to explain, and does not intend here to repeat. 
In it Great Britain laid her hand to any weapon she could 



PRE FA CE ix 

find, to save national life and independence. To justify all 
her measures at the bar of conventional law, narrowly 
construed, is impossible. Had she attempted to square 
herself to it she would have been overwhelmed ; as the 
United States, had it adhered rigidly to its Constitution, 
must have foregone the purchase of the territories beyond 
the Mississippi. The measures which overthrew Napoleon 
grievously injured the United States ; by international law 
grievously wronged her also. Should she have acqui- 
esced? If not, war was inevitable. Great Britain could 
not be expected to submit to destruction for another's 
benefit. 

The author has been indebted to the Officers of the 
Public Records Office in London, to those of the Canadian 
Archives, and to the Bureau of Historical Research of the 
Carnegie Institution of Washington, for kind and essential 
assistance in consulting papers. He owes also an expres- 
sion of personal obligation to the Marquis of Londonderry 
for permission to use some of the Castlereagh corre- 
spondence, bearing on the peace negotiations, which was not 
included in the extensive published Memoirs and Corre- 
spondence of Lord Castlereagh ; and to J\Ir. Charles W. 
Stewart, the Librarian of the United States Navy Depart- 
ment, for inexhaustible patience in searching for, or 
verifying, data and references, needed to make the work 
complete on the naval side. 

A. T. MAHAN. 
September, 1905. 



CONTENTS 



ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

CHAPTER I 

Colonial Conditions 

Page 

Remote origin of the causes of the War of 1812 I 

Two principal causes : impressment and the carrying trade 2 

Claim of Great Britain as to impressment 3 

Counter-claim of tlie United States 4 

Lack of unanimity among the American people .... .... 5 

Prevailing British ideas as to sea power and its relations to carrying 

trade and impressment 9 

The Navigation Acts 10 

Distinction between " Commerce" and "Navigation " 11 

History and development of the Navigation Acts, and of the national 

opinions relating to them 1,3 

Unanimity of conviction in Great Britain 22 

Supposed benefit to the British carrying trade from loss of the Ameri- 
can colonies 23 

British entrepot legislation 24 

Relation of the e«</-e/wM<lea to the Orders in Council of 1807 .... 27 
Colonial monopoly a practice common to all European maritime states 27 
Effect of the Independence of tlie United States upon traditional com- 
mercial prepossessions 29 

Consequent policy of Great Britain 29 

Commercial development of the British transatlantic colonies during 

the colonial period 31 

Interrelation of the continental and West India colonies of Great 

Britain 35 

Bearing of this upon the Navigation Acts 36 

Rivalry of American-built ships with British navigation during tlie 

colonial period 37 

Resultant commercial rivalry after Independence 40 

Consequent disagreements, derived from colonial restrictions, and 

leading to war 41 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER II 

FnoM Independence to Jay's Treatt 

Page 

Eiapture of the colonial relation 42 

Trausitioual character of the period 1774-1794, to the United States . 43 

Epochal significance of Jay's Treaty 43 

The question of British navigation, as aflfected by the loss of the 

colonies 45 

British commercial expectations from the political weakness of the 

United States, 1783-1789 46 

System advocated by Lord Sheffield 47 

Based upon considerations of navigation and naval power 49 

Navigation Acts essentially military in purpose 51 

Jefferson's views upon this question 52 

Imperial value of the British Navigation Act before American In- 
dependence 53 

Influence of the inter-colonial trade at tlie same period 55 

Essential rivalry between it and British trade in general 55 

Common interest of continental America and of Great Britain in the 

West Indies 56 

Pitt's Bill, of March, 1783 58 

Controversy provoked by it in Great Britain 60 

British jealousy of American navigation 63 

Desire to exclude American navigation from British colonial trade . . 65 

Lord Sheffield's pamphlet 65 

Keply of the West India planters 66 

Lapse of Pitt's bill 67 

Navigation Acts applied in full rigor to intercourse between the United 

States and West Indies 68 

This policy continues till Jay's Treaty 69 

Not a wrong to the United States, though an injury 70 

Naval impotence of the LTuited States 71 

Dependence on Portugal against Barbary pirates 72 

Profit of Great Britain from this impotence 74 

Apparent success of Sheffield's trade policy, 1783-1789 75 

Increase of British navigation 75 

American counteractive legislation after the adoption of the Constitution 76 

Report of the committee of the British Privy Council on this subject, 1 790 77 

Aggressive spirit of the Navigation Acts 79 

Change of conditions through American navigation laws 80 

Recommendations of the British committee 81 

Effects of the French Revolution 85 

Collapse of French colonial system 85 

Failure of Sheffield's policy, in supplying the West Indies from Canada 86 

Great Britain's war necessities require aid of American shipping ... 86 



CONTENTS xiii 

Page 

Her resolve to deprive France of tlie same aid 88 

Cousequent lawless measures towards American siiips and commerce . 88 
Jay's mission. — Impressment not mentioned in his instructions ... 88 



CHAPTER III 

From Jay's Treaty to the Orders in Council, 1794-1807 

Arbitrary war measures of Great Britain, 1793 89 

Kule of 1756 90 

Peculiar relation of tlie United States to tliis Rule 92 

Jay's arrival iu London 93 

Characteristics of his negotiations 94 

Great Britain concedes direct trade witli "West Indies 95 

Rejection of this article by the Senate, on account of accomj)anying 

conditions 96 

Concession nevertheless continued by British order 97 

Reasons for this tolerance 97 

Conditions of trade from Jay's mission to the Peace of 1801 .... 97 

No concession of the principle of the Rule of 1756 98 

Renewal of war between Great Britain and France, 1803 99 

Prosperity of American commerce 100 

Question raised of " direct trade " 100 

Decision in British Admiralty Court adverse to United States, 1805 . 101 

United States subjected again to colonial regulation 103 

Remonstrance and negotiation of Monroe, American Minister in London 104 
Death of Pitt. Change of ministry in Great Britain. Position of 

Ciiarles James Fox 105 

Fox's attempt at compromise 108 

The blockade of May 16, 1806 108 

Its lawfulness contested by the United States 110 

Its importance in history 112 

Retaliatory commercial action by tlie United States 113 

Piukney sent to England as colleague to Monroe 113 

Colonial trade, and impressment of seamen from American vessels, tlie 

leading subjects mentioned in their instructions 114 

Historical summary of the impressment question 114 

Opening of negotiations by Monroe and Pinkney 128 

Death of Fox . . . . ' 131 

Course of the negotiations 131 

Provisional treaty, signed December 31, 1806 133 

Rejected by United States Government 133 

Monroe and Pinkney directed to reopen negotiations 133 

Change of ministry in Great Britain. Canning becomes Foreign 

Secretary 134 

The Britisli Government refuses furtlier negotiation 135 



xiv CONTENTS 

Page 

Monroe leaves England, Pinkney remaining aa minister 135 

" Free Trade and Sailors' Rights " 135 

Consistency of Jefferson's Administration on the subject of impressment 137 
It neglects to prepare for war 138 



CHAPTER IV 

From the Orders in Council to Wak 

Reservation of the British Government in signing the treaty of Decem- 
ber 31, 1806 141 

The Berlin Decree 142 

Ambiguity of its wording 143 

The question of " private property," so called, embarked in commercial 

venture at sea. Discussion 144 

Wide political scope of the Berlin Decree 148 

Twofold importance of the United States in international policy . . . 149 

Consequent aims of France and Great Britain 149 

British Order in Council of January 7, 1807 150 

Attitude of the United States Government 152 

Military purpose of the Berlin Decree and the Continental System . . 153 

The " Chesapeake " affair 155 

Conference concerning it between Canning and Monroe 156 

Action of President Jefferson 160 

Use made of it by Canning 161 

Correspondence concerning the " Chesapeake " affair 161 

Rose appointed envoy to Washington to negotiate a settlement . . . 165 

Failure of his mission 167 

Persistent British refusal to punish the offending officer 168 

Significance of the " Chesapeake " affair in the relations of the two 

nations 168 

Its analogy to impressment 1 "0 

Enforcement of the Berlin Decree by Napoleon 172 

Its essential character 174 

The Decree and the Continental System are supported by the course 

of the American Government 1 75 

Pinkney's conviction of Great Britain's peril 177 

The British Orders in Council, November, 1807 177 

Their effect upon the United States 178 

Just resentment in America 1'8 

Action of the Administration and Congress 181 

The Embargo Act of December, 1807 182 

Explanations concerning it to Great Britain 183 

Its intentions, real and alleged 185 

Its failure, as an alternative to war 186 

Jefferson's aversion to the carrving trade . 1 S7 



CONTENTS XV 

Page 

Growing ill-feeling between the United States and Great Britain . . . 190 
Relief to Great Britain from the etfet-ts of the Continental System, by 

the Spanish revolt against Napoleon 191 

Depression of United States industries under the Embargo 192 

Difficulty of enforcement 194 

Evasions and smuggling 195 

The Embargo beneficial to Canada and Nova Scotia 198 

Effects in Great Britain 199 

Relief to British navigation through the Embargo 200 

Effect of the Embargo upon American revenue 202 

Numbers of American vessels remain abroad, submitting to the Orders 

in Council, and accepting British licenses and British convoy . . . 203 

Napoleon's Bayonue Decree against them; April 17, 1808 203 

Illustrations of the working of Napoleon's Decrees and of the Orders in 

Council 204 

Vigorous enforcement of the Embargo in 1808 206 

Popular irritation and opposition 207 

Act for its further enforcement, January 9, 1809 208 

Evidences of overt resistance to it 209 

Act for partial repeal, introduced February 8 210 

Conflicting opinions as to the Embargo, in and out of Congress . . . 211 

The Non-Intercourse Act, March 1, 1809 214 

Its eflfect upon commercial restrictions 215 

Canning's advances, in consequence of Non-Intercourse Act .... 215 

Instructions sent to Erskine, British Minister at Washington .... 216 

Erskine's misleading communication of them, April 18, 1809 .... 218 

Consequent renewal of trade with Great Britain 219 

Erskine disavowed. Non-Intercourse resumed, August 9, 1809 . . . 219 
Orders in Council of November, 1807, revoked; and substitute issued, 

April 26, 1809 220 

Consequent partial revival of American commerce 220 

Francis J. Jackson appointed as Erskine's successor 221 

His correspondence with the American Secretary of State 222 

Further communication with him refused 225 

Criticism of the American side of this correspondence 226 

VVellesley succeeds Canning as British Foreign Secretary 229 

Jacksou's dismissal communicated to Wellesley by Pinkuey 229 

Wellesley delays action 230 

British view of the diplomatic situation 231 

Failure of the Non-Intercourse Act 232 

Difficulty of finding a substitute 233 

Act of May 1, 1810. — Its provisions 234 

Napoleon's Rambouillet Decree, March 23, 1810 235 

Act of May 1, 1810, communicated to France and Great Britain ... 236 

Napoleon's action. Champagny's letter, August 5, 1810 237 

Madison accepts it as revoking the French Decrees 238 



xvi CONTENTS 

Page 

The arguments for and against this interpretation 239 

Great Britain refuses to accept it 242 

Statement of her position in the matter 243 

Wellesley's procrastinations 245 

Pinkney states to him the American view, at length, December 10, 1810 245 

Wellesley's reply 246 

Inconsistent action of the French Government 247 

Non-Intercourse with Great Britain revived by statute, March 2, 1811 . 249 

The American Minister withdraws from London, February 28, 1811 . 251 
Non-Intercourse with Great Britain remains in vigor to, and during, 

the war 252 

Augustus J. Foster appointed British Minister to the United States, 

February, 18)1 252 

His instructions 253 

His correspondence with the Secretary of State 254 

Settlement of tiie " Chesapeake " affair 255 

The collision between the " President " and the " Little Belt "... 256 

Special session of Congress summoned 259 

The President's Message to Congress, November 5, 1811 259 

Increase of the army voted 259 

Debate on the navy 260 

Congress refuses to increase tlie navy, January 27, 1812 263 

Embargo of ninety days preparatory to war, April 4 263 

The evasions of this measure ' 264 

Increasing evidence of the duplicitj' of Napoleon's action 266 

Report of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marcli 10, 1812 . . 269 

Consequent British declaration 270 

Use of these papers by Barlow, American Minister to France .... 271 
The spurious Fi'ench Decree of April 28, 1811, communicated to 

Barlow 272 

Communicated to the British Government 273 

Considerations induencing the British Government 274 

The Orders in Council revoked 276 

Madison sends a war message to Congress, June 1, 1812 279 

Declaration of war, June 18, 1812 279 

Conditions of the army, navy, and treasury 279 



CHAPTER V 

The Theatre of Operations 

Limitations on American action through deficient sea power .... 283 

Warfare against commerce considered 284 

Its financial and political effects 285 

Its military bearing 285 

Distinction between military and commercial blockade 286 



CONTENTS xvii 

Page 
Commercial blockade identical iii essence with commorce-destroyinc; 

by cruisers 287 

Recognition of this by Napoleon 287 

Commerce destruction by blockade the weapon of the stronger navy ; by 

cruisers, of tlie weaker 288 

Inefficiency of the American Government shown in the want of naval 

preparation 289 

Conditions in the army even worse 290 

Jefferson's sanguine expectations 291 

Propriety of the invasion of Canada discussed 292 

The United States, weak on the seaboard, relatively strong towards 

Canada 295 

Function of the seaboard in tlie war ; defensive 296 

Offensive opportunity essential to any scheme of defence 298 

Application of this principle ; in general, and to 1812 298 

Conditions on the Canada frontier, favoring the offensive by the United 

States 300 

Importance of the Great Lakes to military operations 301 

Over-confidence of Americans 303 

Corresponding apprehension of British officers 304 

Decisive points on the line between the countries 305 

Importance of the Indians as an element in the situation 306 

Proper offensive policy of the United States 307 

Natural advantages favoring the United States 309 

The land frontier the proper scene of American offensive action . . . 310 

Seaboard conditions, for offence and defence 311 



CHAPTER VI 

Early Cruises and Engagements. Hull's Operations and 
Surrender 

Composition of Commodore Rodgers' squadron at outbreak of war . . 314 

Indecisions of the Navy Department 315 

Question between small squadrons and single cruisers for commerce- 
destroying 315 

Opinions of prominent officers 316 

British convoy system for protecting trade 319 

The Navy Department formulates a plan of operations 320 

Discussion of its merits 321 

Rodgers sails witliont receiving Department's plan 322 

Encounter with the " Belvidera " 323 

The cruise unproductive, offensively 324 

But not therefore unsuccessful, defensively 325 

Its effect upon the movements of British vessels 326 

The sailing of the "Constitution" 328 

VOL. I. — b 



xviii CONTENTS 

Page 

Chased by a British squadron 329 

Cruise of the " Constitution " under Hull 329 

Engagement with the " Guerriere " 330 

Hull and Kodgers meet in Boston 335 

Misfortune on laud 336 

Wretched condition of the American army 336 

Appointment of Henry Dearborn and William Hull as generals. Hull 

to command in the Northwest 337 

Isaac Brock, the British general commanding in Upper Canada . . . 337 

His well-considered scheme of operation 338 

Incompetency of the American War Department 339 

Hull takes command at Dayton 340 

Advances to Detroit 341 

Crosses to Canada . . 341 

Brock causes seizure of Michilimackinac 341 

Hull's delays in Cauada, before Maiden 343 

The danger of his position 343 

The British attack his communications 345 

Hull recrosses to Detroit 345 

Brock's difficulties 346 

Moves against Hull, and reaches Maiden 346 

Crosses to Detroit, and advances 346 

Hull surrenders 347 

Criticism of his conduct 348 

Extenuating circumstances 349 

Ultimate responsibility lies upon the Governments which had been in 

power for ten years 350 



CHAPTER VII 

Operations on the Northern Frontier after Hull's Surrender. 
European Events bearing on the War 

Brock returns to Niagara from Detroit 351 

Prevost, Governor-General of Cauada, arranges with Dearborn a sus- 
pension of hostilities 352 

Suspension disapproved by the American Government. Hostilities 

resumed 353 

Brock's advantage by control of the water 353 

Two of his vessels on Lake Erie taken from him by Lieutenant Elliott, 

U. S. Navy 354 

Brock's estimate of this loss 356 

American attack upon Queeuston 357 

Repulsed, but Brock killed 357 

Abortive American attack on the Upper Niagara 358 

Inactivity of Dearborn on the northern New York frontier 359 



COXTENTS xix 

Page 

Military inefficiency throughout the United States 360 

Improvement only in the naval situation on the lakes SOI 

Captain Chauncey appointed to command on Lakes Erie and Ontario . 301 

His activity and efficiency 3('>2 

Disadvantages of his naval base, Sackett's Harbor 363 

Chauncey's early t)]ierati(ins, November, 1S12 36-4 

Fleet lays up for the winter 366 

Effect of his first operations 366 

General Harrison succeeds to Hull's command 367 

Colonel Procter commands the British forces opposed 367 

His instructions from Prevost and Brock 367 

Harrison's plan of operations 368 

The American disaster at Freuchtown 370 

Effect upon Harrison's plans 371 

The army remains on the defensive, awaiting naval control of Lake Erie 371 

Chauncey visits Lake Erie 374 

Disadvantages of Black Rock as a naval station 374 

Chauncey selects Presqu' Isle (Erie) instead 375 

Orders vessels built tliere 375 

Advantages and drawbacks of Erie as a naval base 375 

Commander Perry ordered to the lakes 376 

Assigned by Chauncey to command on Lake Erie 376 

Naval conditions on Lakes Erie and Ontario, at close of 1812 .... 377 

Contemporary European conditions 378 

Napoleon's expedition against Russia 379 

Commercial embarrassments of Great Britain 379 

Necessity of American supplies to the British armies in Spain . . . . 381 
Preoccupation of the British Navy with conditions in Europe and the 

East 382 

Consequent embarrassment from the American war 383 

Need of the American market 384 

Danger to British West India trade from an American war .... 384 

Burden thrown upon the British Admiralty 385 

British anxiety to avoid war 386 



CHAPTER VIII 

Ocean Warfare against Commerce — Privateering — British 

Licenses — Naval Actions: "Wasp" and "Frolic," 

"United States" and "Macedonian" 

Consolidation of British transatlantic naval commands 387 

Sir John Borlase Warren commander-in-chief 387 

British merchant sliips forbidden to sail without convoy 388 

Continued hope for restoration of peace 389 

Warren instructed to make propositions . 390 



XX CONTENTS 

Page 

Eeply of the American Government 391 

Cessation of impressment demanded. . Negotiation fails 391 

Warren's appreciation of the dangers to British commerce 392 

Extemporized character of the early American privateering 394 

Its activities therefore mainly within Warren's station 394 

Cruise of the privateer " Rossie," Captain Barney 395 

Privateering not a merely speculative undertaking 396 

Conditions necessary to its success 397 

Illustrated by the privateer " America " 398 

Comparative immunity of American shipping and commerce at the be- 
ginning of hostilities 399 

Causes for this 400 

Controversial correspondence between Warren and the Admiralty . 401 

Policy of the Admiralty. Its effects 404 

American ships of war and ])rivateers gradually compelled to cruise in 

distant seas 406 

American commerce excluded from the ocean 406 

Sailing of the squadrons of Rodgers and Decatur 407 

Their separation 408 

Cruise of Rodgers' squadron 409 

British licenses to American merchant vessels 410 

Action between the " Wasp " and " Frolic " 412 

Cruise of the " Argus," of Decatur's division 415 

Action between the " United States " and " Macedonian " 416 

The " United States " returns with her prize 422 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

VOLUME ONE. 
Thk Impressment of ax American Seaman . . Frontispiece 

From a drawing by Stanley M. Arthurs. 

GOUVERNEUR MoRRIS l\uje G 

From the painting by Marohant, after Sully, in luJepeudeuce Hall, 
Philadelphia. 

John Jav " 88 

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart, in Bedford (Jay) House, Katonah, 
N. Y. 

James Monroe " 104 

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart, in the possession of Hon. T. Jefferson 
Coolidge. 

Thomas Jefferson " 120 

From the painting byGilbert Stuart, in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. 

James Madison " 223 

From the painting byGilbert Stuart, iu Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. 

The Chase of the Belvklera " 322 

From a drawing by Carlton T. Chapman. 

The Forecastle of the Constitution during the Chase " 328 

From a drawing by Henry Reuterdahl. 

Captain Isaac Hull " 330 

From the engraving by D. Edwin, after the painting by Gilbert Stuart. 

The Burning op the Guerriere " 334 

From a drawing by Henry Reuterdahl. 

Captain Stephen Decatur " 420 

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. 



MAPS AND BATTLE PLANS. 



VOLUME ONE. 

Theatre of Land and Coast Warfare Page 283 

The Atlantic Ocean, showing the positions of the Ocean 
Actions of the War of 1812 and the Movements of the 
Squadrons in July and August, 1812 " 326 

Plan of the Engaoement between the Constitution and 

Guemere '^ 

Map of Lake Frontier to illustrate Campaigns of 1812-1814 " 370 
The Cruises of the Three American Squadrons in the 



Autumn of 1812 



408 



Plan of the Encragement between the United States and 
Macedonian 



Sea Power in its Relations to 
the War of 1812 



ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 



CHAPTER I 
COLONIAL CONDITIONS 

THE head waters of the stream of events which 
led to tlie War of 1812, between the United 
States and Great Britain, must be sought far 
back in the history of Europe, in the principles 
governing commercial, colonial, and naval policy, accepted 
almost universally prior to the Erench Revolution. It is 
true that, before that tremendous epoch was reached, a 
far-reaching contribution to the approaching change in 
men's ideas on most matters touching mercantile inter- 
course, and the true relations of man to man, of nation 
to nation, had been made by the publication, in 1776, of 
Adam Smith's " Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of 
the Wealth of Nations ; " but, as is the case with most 
marked advances in the realm of thought, the light thus 
kindled, though finding reflection here and there among a 
few broader intellects, was unable to penetrate at once the 
dense surface of prejudice and conservatism with which the 
received maxims of generations had incrusted the general 
mind. Against such obstruction even the most popular 
of statesmen — as the younger Pitt soon after this became 
— cannot prevail at once ; and, before time permitted the 

VOL. I. — 1 



2 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

British people at large to reach that wider comprehension 
of issues, whereby alone radical change is made possible, 
there set in an era of reaction consequent upon the French 
Revolution, the excesses of which involved in one univer- 
sal discredit all the more liberal ideas that were leavening 
the leaders of mankind. 

The two principal immediate causes of the War of 1812 
were the impressment of seamen from American mer- 
chant ships, upon the high seas, to serve in the British 
Navy, and the interference with the carrying trade of the 
United States by the naval power of Great Britain. For a 
long time this interference was confined by the British 
Ministry to methods which they thought themselves able 
to defend — as they did the practice of impressment — 
upon the ground of rights, prescriptive and established, 
natural or belligerent; although the American Government 
contended that in several specific measures no such right 
existed, — that the action was illegal as well as oppressive. 
As the war with Napoleon increased in intensity, however, 
the exigencies of the struggle induced the British cabinet 
to formulate and enforce against neutrals a restriction of 
trade which it confessed to be without sanction in law, 
and justified only upon the plea of necessary retaliation, 
imposed by the unwarrantable course of the French Em- 
peror. These later proceedings, known historically as the 
Orders in Council,^ by their enormity dwarfed all previous 
causes of complaint, and with the question of impressment 
constituted the vital and irreconcilable body of dissent 
which dragged the two states into armed collision. Un- 
doubtedly, other matters of difficulty arose from time to 
time, and were productive of dispute ; but either they were 

1 Order in Council was a general term applied to all orders touching 
affairs, internal as well as external, issued by tlie King in Council. The 
particular orders here in question, W their extraordinary character and wide 
application, came to have a kind of sole title to the expression in the diplo- 
matic correspoHdence between the two countries. 



COLONIAL CONDiriONS 3 

of comparatively trivial importance, easil}' settled by ordi- 
nary diplomatic methods, or there was not at bottom any 
vital difference as to principle, but only as to the method 
of adjustment. For instance, in the flagrant and unpar- 
donable outrage of taking men by force fi'om the United 
States frigate " Chesapeake," the British Government, al- 
though permitted by the American to spin out discussion 
over a period of four years, did not pretend to sustain the 
act itself ; the act, that is, of searching a neutral ship of \var» 
Whatever the motive of the Ministry in postponing redress, 
their pretexts turned upon points of detail, accessory to the 
main transaction, or upon the subsequent course of the 
United States Government, which showed conscious weak- 
ness by taking hasty, pettish half-measures ; instead of ab- 
staining from immediate action, and instructing its minister 
to present an ultimatum, if satisfaction were shirked. 

In the two causes of the war which have been specified, 
the difference was fundamental. Whichever was right, the 
question at stake was in each case one of principle, and 
of necessity. Great Britain never claimed to impress 
American seamen ; but she did assert that her native-born 
subjects could never change their allegiance, that she had 
an inalienable right to their service, and to seize them 
wherever found, except within foreign territory. From 
an admitted premise, that the open sea is common to all 
nations, she deduced a common jurisdiction, in virtue of 
which she arrested her vagrant seamen. This argument 
of right was reinforced by a paramount necessity. In a 
life and death stiuggle with an implacable enem}-. Great 
Britain with difficulty could keep her fleet manned at 
all ; even with indifferent material. The deterioration in 
quality of her ships' companies was notorious ; and it was 
notorious also that numerous British seamen sought em- 
ployment in American merchant ships, hoping there to find 
refuge from the protmcted confinement of a now dreary 



^ 



4 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

maritime war. Resort to impressment was not merel}'' 
the act of a high-handed Government, but the demand of 
both parties in the state, coerced by the sentiment of the 
people, whose will is ultimately irresistible. No ministry 
could hope to retain power if it surrendered the claim to 
take seamen found under a neutral flag. This fact was 
thoroughly established in a long discussion with United 
States plenipotentiaries, five years before the war broke out. 

On the other hand, the United States maintained that on 
the sea common the only jurisdiction over a ship was that 
of its own nation. She could not admit that American ves- 
sels there should be searched, for other purposes than those 
conceded to the belligerent by international law ; that is, 
in order to determine the nature of the voyage, to ascertain 
whether, by destination, by cargo, or by persons carried, the 
obligations of neutrality were being infringed. If there 
was reasonable cause for suspicion, tlie vessel, by accepted 
law and precedent, might be sent to a port of the belliger- 
ent, where the question was adjudicated by legal process ; 
but the actual captor could not decide it on the spot. On 
the contrary, he was bound, to the utmost possible, to pre- 
serve from molestation everything on board the seized ves- 
sel ; in order that, if cleared, the owner might undergo no 
damage beyond the detention. So deliberate a course was 
not suited to the summary methods of impressment, nor to 
the urgent needs of the British Navy. The boarding officer, 
who had no authority to take away a bale of goods, de- 
cided then and there whether a man was subject to impress- 
ment, and carried him off at once, if he so willed. 

It is to the credit of the American Government under 
■Jefferson, that, though weak in its methods of seeking 
redress, it went straight back of the individual sufferer, 
and rested its case unswervingly on the broad principle.^ 

1 Instructions of Madison, Secretary of State, to Monroe, Minister to Great 
Britain, January 5, 1804. Article I. American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 82; 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 5 

That impressment, thus practised, swept in American 
seamen, was an incident only, although it grievously ag- 
gravated the injury. Whatever the native allegiance of 
individuals on board any vessel on the open ocean, their 
rights were not to be regulated by the municipal law of the 
belligerent, but by that of the nation to which the ship 
belonged, of whose territoiy she was constructively a part, 
and whose flag therefore was dishonored, if acquiescence 
were yielded to an infringement of personal liberty, ex- 
cept as conceded by obligations of treaty, or by the general 
law of nations. Within British waters, the United States 
suffered no wrong by the impressment of British sub- 
jects — the enforcement of local municipal law — on board 
American vessels ; and although it was suggested that such 
visits should not be made, and that an arriving crew should 
be considered to have the nationality of theii' ship, this 
concession, if granted, would have been a friendly limita- 
tion by Great Britain of her own municipal jurisdiction. 
It therefore could not be urged upon the British Govern- 
ment by a nation which took its stand resolutely upon the 
supremacy of its own municipal rights, on board its mer- 
chant shipping on the high seas. 

It is to be noted, furthermore, that the voice of the people 
in the United States, the pressure of influence upon the 
Government, was not as unanimous as that exerted upon 
the British Ministry. The feeling of the country was 
divided ; and, while none denied the grievous wrong done 
when an American was impressed, a class, strong at least 
in intellectual power, limited its demands to precautions 
against sucli mistakes and to redress when they occurred. 
The British claim to search, with the object of impressing 
British subjects, was considered by these men to be valid. 
Thus Gouverneur Morris, who on a semi-oificial visit to 
London in 1790 had had occasion to remonstrate upon the 
impressment of Americans in British ports, and who, as a 



6 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

pamphleteer, had taken strong ground against the measures 
of the British Government injurious to American commerce, 
wrote as follows in 1808 about the practice of seizing 
British subjects in American ships : " That we, the people 
of America, should engage in ruinous warfare to support a 
rash opinion, that foreign sailors in our merchant ships are 
to be protected against the power of their sovereign, is 
downright madness." "Why not," he wrote again in 
1813, while the war was raging, "waiving flippant debate, 
lay down the broad principle of national right, on which 
Great Britain takes her native seamen from our merchant 
ships? Let those who deny the right pay, suffer, and 
fight, to compel an abandonment of the claim. Men of 
sound mind will see, and men of sound principle will 
acknowledge, its existence." In his opinion, there was 
but one consistent course to be pursued by those who 
favored the war with Great Britain, which was to insist 
that she should, without compensation, surrender her claim. 
" If that ground be taken," he wrote, " the war [on our 
part] will be confessedly, as it is now impliedly, unjust." ^ 
Morris was a man honorably distinguished in our troubled 
national history — a member of the Congress of the Revo- 
lution and of the Constitutional Convention, a trained 
lawyer, a practised financier, and an experienced diploma- 
tist ; one who throughout his public life stood high in the 
estimation of Washington, with whom he was in constant 
official and personal correspondence. It is to be added 
that those to whom he wrote were evidently in sympathy 
with his opinions. 

So again Representative Gaston, of North Carolina, a 
member of the same political party as Morris, speaking 
from his seat in the House in February, 1814,^ maintained 
the British doctrine of inalienable allegiance. " Naturali- 

1 Diary and Letters of Gouverueur Morris, vol. ii. pp. 508, 546. 

2 Annals of Congress. Thirteenth Congress, vol. ii. pp. 1563 ; 1555-1558. 




GOUVEKNEUR MOKRIS. 



From the painting by Marchant after Sully, in Independence Hall, 
Philadelphia. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS J 

zation granted in another country has no effect whatever 
to destroy the orighial primary allegiance." Even Admin- 
istration speakers did not deny this, but they maintained 
that the native allegiance could be enforced only within its 
territorial limits, not on the high seas. While perfectly 
firm and explicit as to the defence of American seamen, — 
even to the point of war, if needful, — (iaston spoke of the 
British practice as a right. " If you cannot by substitute 
obtain an abandonment of the riglit, or practice, to search 
our vessels, regulate it so as to prevent its abuse ; waiving 
for the present, not relinquishing, your objections to it." 
He expressed sympathy, too, for the desperate straits in 
which Great Britain found herself. " At a time when her 
floating bulwarks were her whole safeguard against slavery, 
she could not view without alarm and resentment the 
warriors who should have manned those bulwarlvs pursuing 
a more gainful occupation in American vessels. Our 
merchant ships were crowded with British seamen, most 
of them deserters from their ships of war, and all furnished 
with fraudulent protections to prove them Americans. To 
us they were not necessary." On the contrary, " they ate 
the bread and bid down the wages of native seamen, whom 
it was our first duty to foster and encom-age." This com- 
petition with native seamen was one of the pleas likewise 
of the New England opposition, too much of which was 
obstinately and reprehensibly factious. " Many thousands 
of British seamen," said Governor Strong of Massachusetts, 
in addressing the Legislature, May 28, 1813, " deserted that 
service for a more safe and lucrative employment in ours." 
Had they not, " the high price for that species of labor 
would soon have induced a sufficient number of Americans 
to become seamen. It appears, therefore, that British 
seamen have been patronized at the expense of our own ; 
and should Great Britain now consent to relinquish the 
right of taking her own subjects, it would be no advantage 



8 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

to our native seamen ; it would only tend to reduce their 
wages by inci-easing the numbers of that class of men."^ 
Gaston further said, that North Carolina, tliough not a 
commercial state, had many native seamen ; but, " at the 
moment war was declared, though inquiry was made, I 
could not hear of a single native seaman detained by British 
impressment." 

It is desirable, especially in these days, when everything 
is to be arbitrated, that men should recognize both sides of 
this question, and realize how impossible it was for either 
party to acquiesce in any other authority than their own 
deciding between them. " As I never had a doubt," said 
Morris, " so I thought it a duty to express my conviction 
that British ministers would not, dared not, submit to me- 
diation a question of essential right.",^ " The way to peace 
is open and clear," he said the following year. " Let the 
right of search and impressment be acknowledged as 
maxims of public law." ^ 

These expressions, uttered in the freedom of private 
correspondence, show a profound comprehension of the 
constraint under which the British Government and people 
both lay. It was impossible, at such a moment of extreme 
national peril, to depart from political convictions engen- 
dered by the uniform success of a policy followed con- 
sistently for a hundred and fifty years. For Great Britain, 
the time had long since passed into a dim distance, when 
the national appreciation of the sea to her welfare was that 
of mere defence, as voiced by Shakespeare : 



1 Niles' Register, vol. iv. p. 234. Author's italics. 

2 Diary and Letters, vol. ii. p. bf>Z. 

3 Tbid., p. .560. Those unfamiliar -with the subject should be cautioned 
that the expression "right of .search" is confined here, not quite accurately, 
to searching for British subjects liable to impressinent. This right tlie United 
States denied. Tlie " right of search " to determine the nationality of the 
vessel, and the character of the voyage, was admitted to belligerents then, as 
it is now, by all neutrals. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 9 

Eiiglaiid, hedged in -witli the main, 
That water-walled bulwark, still secure 
And confident from foreign purposes.^ 

This little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea. 
Which serves it in the office of a wall. 
Or as a moat defensive to a house 
Against the envy of less hai)pier lands. ^ 

By the middle of the seventeenth century, the perception 
of Great Britain's essential need to predominate upon the 
sea had dawned upon men's minds, and thence had passed 
from a vague national consciousness to a clearly defined 
national line of action, adopted first through a recognition 
of existing conditions of inferiority, but after these had 
ceased pursued without any change of spirit, and with no , 
important changes of detail. This policy was formulated ' 
in a series of measures, comprehensively known as the 
Navigation Acts, the first of which was passed in 1651, 
during Cromwell's Protectorate. In 1660, immediately 
after the Restoration, it was reaffirmed in most essential 
features, and thenceforward continued to and beyond the 
times of which we are writing. In form a policy of sweep- 
ing protection, for the development of a particular British 
industry, — tlie carrying trade, — - it was soon recognized 
that, in substance, its success had laid the foundations of 
a naval strength equally indispensable to the country. 
Upon this ground it was e.pproved even by Adam Smith, 
although in direct opposition to the general spirit of his 
then novel doctrine. While exposing its fallacies as a 
commercial measure, he said it exemplified one of two 
cases in which protective legislation was to be justified., y 
" The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends very 
much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The I 
Act of Navigation therefore very properly endeavors to j 

1 King John, Act II. Scene 1. - King Kichard II., Act II. Scene 1. 



10 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the mo- 
nopoly of the trade of their own country. ... It is not 
impossible that some of the regulations of this famous Act 
may have proceeded from national animosity. They are as 
wise, however, as though they had all been dictated by the 
most deliberate wisdom. . . . The Act is not favorable to 
foreign commerce, nor to the opulence which can arise 
from that ; but defence is of much more importance than 
opulence. The Act of Navigation is perhaps the wisest of 
all the commercial regulations of England." ^ It became a 
dominant prepossession of British statesmen, even among 
Smith's converts, in the conduct of foreign relations, that 
the military power of the state lay in the vast resources of 
native seamen, employed in its merchant ships. Even the 
wealth returned to the country, by the monopoly of the 
imperial markets, and by the nearly exclusive possession of 
the carrying trade, which was insured to British commerce 
by the elaborate regulations of the Act, was thought of less 
moment. " Every commercial consideration has been re- 

1 .Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited 
by J. E. Thorold Kogers. Oxford, 1880, pp. 3.5-.38. In a subsequent passage 
(p. 178), Smith seems disposed somewhat to qualify the positive assertion 
here quoted, on tlie ground that the Navigation Act iiad not had time to e.xert 
much effect, at the period when some of the most decisive successes over tlie 
Dutcli were won. It is to be observed, however, that a vigorous military gov- 
ernment, sucli as Cromwell's was, can assert itself in tlie fleet as well as in 
the army, creating an effective organization out of scanty materials, es])e- 
cially when at war with a commercial state of wealv military constitution, like 
Holland. It was the story of Rome and Cartilage repeated. Louis XIV. for 
a while accomplished the same. But under the laxity of a liberal popular 
government, which England increasingly enjoyed after the Restoration, naval 
power could be based securely only upon a strong, available, and permanent 
maritime element in the civil body politic ; that is, on a mercantile marine. 

As regards the working of the Navigation Act to this end, whatever may 
be argued as to the economical expediency of protecting a particular industry, 
there is no possible doubt that such an industry can be built up, to huge pro- 
portions, by sagacious protectiou consistently enforced. The whole history of 
protection demonstrates this, and the Navigation Act did in its day. It 
created the British carrying trade, and in it provided for the Royal Navy an 
abundant and accessible reserve of raw material, capable of being rapidly 
manufactured into naval seamen in an hour of emergeacy. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS H 

peatedly urged," wrote John Adams, the first United States 
Minister to Great Britain, "■ but to no effect ; seamen, the 
Navy, and power to strilve an awful blow to an enemy at 
the first outbreak of war, are the ideas whieh prevail." ^ 
This object, and this process, are familiar to us in these 
later days under the term "mobilization;" the military 
value of which, if rapidly effected, is well understood. 

In this light, and in the light of the preceding experience 
of a hundred and fifty years, we must regard the course of 
the British INIinistry through that period, extremely critical 
to both nations, which began when our War of Independ- 
ence ended, and issued in the War of 1812. We in this 
day are continually told to look back to our fathers of the 
Revolutionary period, to follow their precepts, to confine 
ourselves to the lines of their policy. Let us then either 
justify the British ministries of Pitt and his successors, in 
their obstinate adherence to the traditions they had re- 
ceived, or let us adnut that even ancestral j^iety may be 
carried too far, and that venerable maxims must be brought 
to the test of existing conditions. 

The general movement of maritime intercourse between 
countries is commonly considered under two principal 
heads: Commerce and Navigation. The first applies to 
the interchange of commodities, however effected; the 
second, to their transportation from port to port. A 
nation may have a large commerce, of export and import, 
carried in foreign vessels, and possess little shipping of 
its own. This is at present the condition of the United 
States; and once, in far gone da^'s, it was in great meas- 
ure that of England. In such case there is a defect of 
navigation, consequent upon which there will be a defi- 
ciency of native seamen ; of seamen attached to the 
country and its interests, by ties of birth or habit. For 
maritime war such a state will have but small resources of 

1 Works of John Adams, vol. viii. pp. 389-390. 



12 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

adaptable naval force ; a condition dangerous in proportion 
to its dependence upon control of the sea. Therefore the 
attention of British statesmen, during the period in which 
the Navigation Act flourished, fastened more and more 
upon the necessity of maintaining the navigation of the 
kingdom, as distinguished from its commerce. Subsidiary 
to the movement of commerce, there is a third factor, 
relatively stationary, the consideration of which is prob- 
ably less familiar now than it was to the contemporaries 
of the Navigation Act, to whom it was known under the 
name entrepot. This terra was applied to those commer- 
cial centres — in this connection maritime centres — where 
goods accumulate on their way to market; where they are 
handled, stored, or transshipped. All these processes in- 
volve expenditure, which inures to the profit of the port, 
and of the nation; the effect being the exact equivalent 
of the local gains of a railroad centre of the present day. 
It was a dominant object with statesmen of the earlier 
period to draw such accumulations of traffic to their own 
ports, or nations ; to force trade, by ingenious legislation, 
or even by direct coercion, to bring its materials to their 
own shores, and there to yield to them the advantages of 
the entrepot. Thus the preamble to one of the series of 
Navigation Acts states, as a direct object, the "making 
this Kingdom a staple ^ [emporium], not only of the com- 
modities of our plantations, but also of the commodities of 
other countries, and places, for the supply of the planta- 
tions. "^ An instructive example of such indirect effort 
was the institution of free ports ; ports which, by exemption 
from heavy customary tolls, or by the admission of foreign 
ships or goods, not permitted entrance to other national 
harbors, invited the merchant to collect in them, from sur- 

1 This primary meaning of the word "staple" seems to have disappeared 
from common use, in which it is now applied to the commercial articles, the 
concentration of which at a particular port made that port a " staple." 

2 Bryan Edwards, West Indies, vol. ii. p. 448. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 13 

rounding regions, the constituents of his cargoes. On the 
other hand, the Colonial System, which })egan to assume 
importance at the time of the Navigation Act, afforded 
abundant opportunity for the compulsion of trade. Colo- 
nies being part of the mother country, and yet trans- 
oceanic with reference to her, maritime commerce between 
them and foreign communities could by direct legislation 
be obliged first to seek the parent state, which thus was 
made the distributing centre for l)oth their exports and 
imports. 

For nearly three centuries before the decisive measures 
taken by the Parliament of the Commonwealth, the devel- 
opment and increase of English shipping, l)y regulation of 
English trade, had Ijeen recognized as a desirable object 
by many English rulers. The impulse had taken shape in 
various enactments, giving to English vessels privileges, 
exclusive or qualified, in the import or export carriage 
of the kingdom ; and it will readily be understood that 
the matter appeared of even more pressing importance, 
when the Navy depended upon the merchant service for 
,ships, as well as for men ; when the war iieets of the nation 
were composed of impressed ships, as well as manned by 
impressed sailors. These various laws had been tentative 
in character. Both firmness of purpose and continuity of 
■effort were lacking to them; due doubtless to the com- 
parative weakness of the nation in the scale of European 
states up to the seventeenth century. During the reigns 
of the first two Stuarts, this weakness was emphasized by 
internal dissensions ; but the appreciation of the necessity 
for some radical remedy to the decay of English naval 
power remained and increased. To this conviction the 
ship-money of Charles the First bears its testimony; but 
it was left to Cromwell and his associates to formulate 
the legislation, upon which, for two centuries to come, the 
kingdom was thought to depend, alike for the growth of 



14 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

its merchant shipping and for the maintenance of the 
navy. All that preceded has interest chiefly as showing 
the origin and growth of an enduring national conviction, 
with which the United States came into collision immedi- 
ately after achieving independence. 

The ninth of October, 1651, is the date of the passing 
of the Act, the general terms of which set for two hundred 
years the standard for British legislation concerning the 
shipping industry. The title of the measure, " Goods 
/ from foreign ports, by whom to be imported," indicated 
at once that the object in view was the carrying trade; 
navigation, rather than commerce. Commerce was to be 
/ manipulated and forced into English bottoms as an indis- 
/ pensable agency for reaching British consumers. At this 
time less than half a century had elapsed since the first 
English colonists had settled in Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia. The British plantation system was still in its 
beginnings, alike in America, Asia, and Africa. When 
the then recent Civil War ended, in the overthrow of the 
royal power, it had been "observed with concern that 
the merchants of England had for several years usually 
freighted Dutch ships for fetching home their merchan- 
dise, because the freights were lower than in English 
ships. Dutch ships, therefore, were used for importing 
our own American products, while English ships lay rot- 
ting in harbor." ^ "Notwithstanding the regulations made 
for confining that branch of navigation to the mother 
country, it is said that in the West India Islands there 
used, at this time, out of forty ships to be thirty-eight 
ships Dutch bottoms." 2 English mariners also, for want 
of employment, went into the Dutch service. In this way 
seamen for the navy disappeared, just as, at a later day, 
they did into the merchant shipping of the United States. 

1 Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 443. 

2 Keeves, History of the Law of Navigation, Dublin, 1792, p. 37. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS I5 

The one great maritime rival of England, Holland, had 
thus engrossed, not only the carrying trade of Europe 
at large, most of which, from port to port, was done by 
her seamen, but that of England as well. Even of the 
English coasting trade much was done by Dutch ships. 
Under this competition, the English merchant marine 
was dwindling, and had become so inadequate that, when 
the exclusion of foreigners was enforced by the Act, the 
cry at once arose in the land that the English shipping 
was not sufficient for the work thus thrust upon it. "Al- 
though our own people have not shipping euougli to import 
from all parts what they want, they are needlessly debarred 
from receiving new supplies of merchandise from other 
nations, who alone can, and until now did, import it."^ 
The effect of this decadence of shipjiing upon the resources 
of men for the navy is apparent. 

The existence of strained relations between England 
and Holland facilitated the adoption of the first Naviga- 
tion Act, which, as things were, struck the Dutch only; 
they being the one great carrying community in Europe. 
Although both the letter and the purpose of the new law 
included in its prohibitions all foreign countries, the com- 
mercial interests of other states were too slight, and their 
commercial spirit too dull, to take note of the future effect 
upon themselves ; whether absolutely, or in relation to the 
maritime power of Great Britain, the cornerstone of which 
was then laid. This first Act directed that no merchandise 
from Asia, Africa, or America, including therein English 
"plantations," as the colonies were then stjded,^ should be 

1 Macpherson, vol. ii. p. 444. 

2 Keeves, writing iu 1792, says that there seemed then no distinction of 
meaning between " plantation " and " colony." Plantation wa-s the earlier term ; 
" ' colony ' did not come much into use till the reign of Charles II., and it seems 
to have denoted the political relation." (p. 109. ) By derivation both words 
express the idea of cultivating new ground, or establishing a new settlement; 
but " plantation " seems to associate itself more with the industrial beginnings, 
and " colony " with the formal regulative purpose of the parent state. 



16 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

imported into England in other than English-built ships, 
belonging to English subjects, and of which " the master 
and mariners are also, for the most part of them, of the 
jjeople of this commonwealth." This at once reserved a 
large part of the external trade to English ships ; and also, 
by the regulation of the latter, constituted them a nursery 
for English seamen. To the general tenor of this clause, 
confining importation wholly to English vessels, an excep- 
tion was made for Europe only; importations from any 
part of which was permitted to "such foreign ships and 
vessels as do truly and properly belong to the people of 
that country or place of which the said goods are the 
growth, production, or manufacture." ^ Foreign mer- 
chantmen might therefore import into England the prod- 
ucts of their own country; but both they and English 
vessels must ship such cargoes in the country of origin, not 
at any intermediate port. The purpose of these provisos, 
especially of the second, was to deprive Holland of the 
profit of the middleman, or the ent7'ep<5t^ which she had 
enjoyed hitherto by importing to herself from various 
regions, warehousing the goods, and then re-exporting. 
The expense of these processes, pocketed by Dutch hand- 
dlers, and the exaction of any dues levied by the Dutch 
Treasury, reappeared in increased cost to foreign con- 
sumers. This appreciation of the value of the entrepot 
underlay much of the subsequent colonial regulation of 
England, and actuated the famous Orders in Council of 
1807, which were a principal factor in causing the War 
of 1812. A second effect of these restrictions, which in 
later times was deemed even more important than the 
pecuniary gain, was to compel English ships to go long 
voyages, to the home countries of the cargoes they sought, 

1 The Navigation Acts of 1651, 1660, 1662, and 1663, as well as other 
subsequent measures of the same character, cau be found, conveniently for 
American readers, in MacDonald's Select Charters Illustrative of American 
History. Macmillan, New York. 1899. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS I7 

instead of getting them near by in Dutch depots. This 
gave a corresponding develo])ment to the carrying trade — 
the navigation — of the Conunonwealth; securing greater 
employment for ships and seamen, increasing both their 
numbers and experience, and contributing thereby to the 
resources of the navy in men. " A considerable carrying 
trade would be lost to us, and would remain with the 
merchants of Holland, of Hamburg, and other maritime 
towns, if our merchants were permitted to furnish them- 
selves by short voyages to those neighboring ports, and 
were not compelled to take upon themselves the burden 
of bringing these articles from the countries where they 
were produced."^ 

The Act of 1660, officially known as that of 12 Charles 
II., modified the provisos governing the European trade. 
The exclusion of goods of European origin from all trans- 
portation to England, save in ships of their own nation, 
was to some extent removed. This surrender was cen- 
sured by some, explicitly, because it again enabled the 
Dutch to collect foreign articles and send them to Eng- 
land, thereby "permitting competition with this country 
in the longer part of the voyage ; " to the injury, there- 
fore, of British navigation. The remission, tliough real, 
was less than appeared ; for the prohibitions of the Com- 
monwealth were still applied to a large number of specified 
articles, the produce chiefly of Russia and Turkey, which 
could be imported only in their national ships, or those of 
England. As those countries had substantially no long 
voyage shipping, trade with them was to all practical pur- 
poses confined to English vessels.'^ The concession to 
foreign vessels, such as it was, was further qualified by 

1 Reeves, History of the Law of Naviojatiou, p. 162. 

- For instance, in 1769, ei<i;hteen hundred and forty vessels jiassed tlie 
Sound in the British trade. Of these only thirty-five were Russian. Con- 
siderably more than half of the trade of St. Petersburg with Europe at large 
was done in British ships. Macpherson, vol. iii. p. 493. 
VOL. I. — 2 



18 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

heavier duties, called aliens' duties, upon their cargoes; 
and by the requirement that three-fourths of their crew, 
entering English ports, should be of the same nationality 
as the ship. The object of this regulation was to prevent 
the foreign state from increasing its tonnage, by employ- 
ing seamen other than its own. This went beyond mere 
protection of English vessels, and was a direct attack, 
though by English municipal law, upon the growth of 
foreign shipping. 

This purpose indeed was authoritatively announced from 
the bench, construing the Act in the decision of a specific 
case. "Parliament had wisely foreseen that, if they re- 
strained the importation or exportation of European goods, 
unless in our own ships, and manned with our own sea- 
men, other states would do the same ; and this, in its 
consequences, would amount to a prohibition of all such 
goods, which would be extremely detrimental to trade, 
and in the end defeat the very design of the Act. It was 
seen, however, that many countries in Europe, as France, 
Spain, and Italy, could more easily buy ships than build 
them; that, on the other hand, countries like Russia, and 
others in the North, had timber and materials enough for 
building ships, but wanted sailors. It was from a con- 
sideration of this inaptness in most countries to accomplish 
a complete navigation, that the Parliament prohibited the 
importation of most European goods, unless in ships owned 
and navigated by English, or in ships of the huild of and 
manned by sailors of that country of which the goods 
were the growth. The consequence would be that for- 
eigners could not make use of ships they bought, though 
English subjects might. This would force them to have 
recourse to our shipping, and the general intent of the 
Act, to secure the carrying trade to the English, wouhl 
be answered as far as it possibly could." It was therefore 
ruled that the tenor of the Act forbade foreigners to import 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS I9 

to England in ships not of their own building; and, adds 
the reporter, " This exposition of the Act of Navigation is 
certainly the true one."^ Having thus narrowed foreign 
competition to the utmost extent possible to municipal 
statutes, Parliament made the carrying industry even 
more exclusively than before a preserve for native seamen. 
The Commonwealth's requirement, that "the most" of 
the crew should be English, was changed to a definite pre- 
scription that the master and three-fourths of the mariners 
should be so. 

Under such enactments, with frequent modification of 
detail, but no essential change of method, British shipping 
and seamen continued to be " protected " against foreign 
competition down to and beyond the War of 1812. In 
this long interval there is no change of conception, nor 
any relaxation of national conviction. The whole his- 
tory affords a remarkable instance of persistent policy, 
pursued consecutively for five or six generations. No 
better evidence could be given of its hold upon the minds 
of the people, or of the serious nature of the obstacle 
encountered by any other state that came into collision 
with it; as the United States during the Napoleonic period 
did, in matters of trade and carriage, but especially in the 
closely related question of Impressment. 

Whether the Navigation Act, during its period of vigor, 
was successful in developing the British mercantile marine 
and supporting the British Navy has been variously ar- 
gued. The subsequent growth of British navigation is 
admitted; but whether this was the consequence of the 
measure itself has been disputed. It appears to the writer 
that those who doubt its effect in this respect allow their 
convictions of the strength of economical forces to blind 
them to the power of unremitting legislative action. To 
divert national activities from natural channels into arti- 

1 Opinion of Chief Baron Parker, quoted by Reeves, pp. 187-189. 



20 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

ficial may be inexpedient and wasteful ; and it may be 
reasonable to claim that ends so achieved are not really 
successes, but failures. Nevertheless, although natural 
causes, till then latent, may have conspired to further 
the development which the Navigation Act was intended 
to promote, and although, since its abolition, the same 
causes may have sufficed to sustain the imposing national 
carrying trade built up during its continuance, it is diffi- 
cult to doubt the great direct influence of the Act itself ; 
havinof in view the extent of the results, as well as the 
corroborative success of modern states in building up and 
maintaining other distinctly artificial industries, sometimes 
to the injury of the natural industries of other peoples, 
which the Navigation Act also in its day was meant to 
effect. 

The condition of British navigation in 1651 has been 
stated. The experience of the remaining years of the Pro- 
tectorate appears to have confirmed national opinion as to 
the general policy of the Act, and to have suggested the 
modifications of the Restoration. To trace the full se- 
quence of development, in legislation or in shipping, is 
not here permissible ; the present need being simply to 
give an account, and an explanation, of the strength of 
a national prepossession, which in its manifestation was a 
chief cause of the events that are the theme of this book. 
A few scattered details, taken casually, seem strikingly to 
sustain the claims of the advocates of the system, bear- 
ing always in mind the depression of the British ship- 
ping industry before the passage of the law. In 1728 
there arrived in London from all parts beyond sea 2052 
ships, of which only 213 were under foreign flags ; less 
■ than one in nine. In Liverpool, in 1765, of 1533 entered 
and cleared, but 135 were foreign ; in Bristol, the same 
year, of 701 but 91 foreign. Of the entire import of that 
year only 28 per cent, in money value, came from Europe ; 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 21 

the carriage of the remaining 72 per cent was confined to 
British ships. It may, of course, be maintained that this 
restriction of shipping operated to the disadvantage of the 
commerce of the kingdom ; that there was direct pecuniary 
loss. This woukl not be denied, for the object of the Act 
was less national gain than the upbuilding of shipping as 
a resource for the navy. Nevertheless, at this same period, 
in 1764, of 810 ships entering the great North German 
commercial centre, Hamburg, 267 — over one-third — were 
British ; the Dutch but 146, the Hamburgers themselves 
157. A curious and suggestive comparison is afforded by 
the same port in 1769. From the extensive, populous, and 
fruitful country of France, the entrepot of the richest West 
Indian colony, Santo Domingo, there entered Hamburg 203 
ships, of which not one was French ; whereas from Great 
Britain there came a slightly larger total, 216, of which 
178 were British. 

Such figures seem to substantiate the general contempo- 
rary opinion of the efficacy of the Navigation Act, and to 
support the particular claim of a British writer of the day, 
that the naval weakness of Holland and France was due to 
the lack of similar measures. " The Dutch have indeed 
pursued a different policy, but they have thereby fallen to 
a state of weakness, which is now the object of pity, or of 
contempt. It was owing to the want of sailors, and not to 
the fault of their officers, that the ten ships of the line, 
which during their late impudent quarrel with Britain had 
been stipulated to join the French fleet, never sailed." ^ 
" The French Navy, which at all times depended chiefly 
upon the West India trade for a supply of seamen, must 
have been laid up, if the war (of American Independence) 
had continued another year." ^ Whatever the accuracy of 

1 Chalmers, Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Law and Com- 
mercial Policy Arising from American Independence, p. 32. 
^ Ibid., p. 55. 



22 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

these statements,^ — and they are those of a well-informed 
man, — they represented a general conviction, not in Great 
Britain only but in Europe, of the results of the Naviga- 
tion legislation. A French writer speaks of it as the source 
of England's greatness,^ and sums up his admiration in 
words which recognize the respective shares of natural 
advantages and sagacious supervision in the grand out- 
come. " Called to commerce by her situation, it became 
the spirit of her government and the lever of her ambi- 
tion. In other monarchies, it is private individuals who 
carry on commerce ; but in that happy constitution it is 
tlie state, or the nation in its entirety." 

In Great Britain itself there was substantial unanim- 
ity. This colored all its after policy towards its lately re- 
bellious and now independent children, who as carriers 
had revived the once dreaded rivalry of the Dutch. To 
quote one writer, intimately acquainted with the whole 
theory and practice of the Navigation Acts, they "tend to 
the establishment of a monopoly; but our ancestors . . . 
considered the defence of this island from foreign invasion 
as the first law in the national policy. Judging that the 
dominion of the land could not be preserved without pos- 
sessing that of the sea, they made every effort to procure 
to the nation a maritime power of its own. They wished 
tliat the merchants should own as many ships, and employ 
as many mariners as possible. To induce, and sometimes 
to force, them to this application of their capital, restric- 
tions and prohibitions were devised. The interests of 

1 A French naval historian supports them, speaking of tlie year 1781 : 
■" The considerable armaments made since 1778 had exhausted the resources 
of personnel. To remedy the difficulty the complements were filled up with 
coast-guard militia, with marine troops until tlien employed only to form the 
guards of the ships, and finally with what were called ' novices volontaires,* 
who were landsmen recruited by bounties. It may be imagined what crews 
were formed with such elements." — Troude, Batailles Navales, vol. ii. p. 202. 

- Raynal, Mistoire Philosophique des deux Indes, vol. vii. p. 287 (Edition 
1820). Raynal's reputation is tliat of a plagiarist, but his best work is attrib- 
uted to far greater names of his time. He died in 1796. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 23 

commerce were often sacrificed to tliis object." Yet he 
claims that in the end commerce also profited, for "the 
increase in the number of ships became a spur to seek out 
employment for them." In 1792, British registered ship- 
ping amounted to 1,365,000 tons, emjjloying 80,000 sea- 
men. Of these, by common practice, two-thirds — say 
50,000 — were available for war, during which it was 
the rule to relax the Act so far as to require only one- 
fourth of the crew to be British. " That the increase in 
our shipping is to be ascribed to our navigation system 
appears in the application of it to the trade of the United 
States. When those countries were part of our planta- 
tions, a great portion of our produce was transported to 
Great Britain and our West India Islands in American 
bottoms; they had a share in the freight of sugars from 
those islands to Great Britain; they built annually more 
than one hundred ships, which were employed in the car- 
rying trade of Great Britain ; but since the Independence 
of those states, since their ships have been excluded from 
our plantations, and that trade is wholly confined to Brit- 
ish ships, we have gained that share of our carrying trade 
from which they are now excluded. "^ In corroboration of 
the same tendency, it was also noted during the war with 
the colonies, that " the shipyards of Britain in every port 
were full of employment, so that new yards were set up 
in places never before so used."^ That is, the war, stop- 
ping the intrusion of American colonists into the British 
carrying trade, just as the Navigation Act prohibited that 
of foreign nations, created a demand for British ships to 
fill the vacancy; a result perfectly in keeping with the 
whole object of the navigation system. But when hostili- 
ties with France began again in 1793, and lasted with 
slight intermission for twenty years, the drain of the 
navy for seamen so limited the development of the Brit- 

1 Reeves, pp. 430-434. ^ Macpherson, vol. iv. p. 10. 



24 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

ish navigation as to afford an opening for competition, 
of which American maritime aptitude took an advantage, 
threatening British supremacy and arousing corresponding 
jealousy. 

Besides the increase of national shipping, the idea of 
entrepot received recognition in both the earlier and later 
developments of the system. Numerous specified articles, 
produced in English colonies, could be carried nowhere 
but to England, Ireland, or another colony, where they 
must be landed before going farther. Because regularly 
listed, such articles were technically styled " enumerated ; " 
"enumerated commodities being such as must first be 
landed in England before being taken to foreign parts." ^ 
From this privilege Ireland was soon after excepted ; enu- 
merated goods for that country having first to be landed in 
England.^ Among such enumerated articles, tobacco and 
rice held prominent places and illustrate the system. Of 
the former, in the first half of the eighteenth century, it 
was estimated that on an average seventy- two million 
pounds were sent yearly to England, of which fifty-four 
million were re-exported ; an export duty of sixpence per 
pound being then levied, besides the cost of handling. 
Rice, made an enumerated article in 1705, exemplifies aptly 
the ideas which influenced the multifold manipulation of 
the nation's commerce in those days. The restriction was 
removed in 1731, so far as to permit this product to be 
sent direct from South Carolina and Georgia to any part 
of Europe south of Cape Finisterre ; but only in British 
ships navigated according to the Act. In this there is a 
partial remission of the entrepot exaction, while the nurs- 
ing of the carrying trade is carefully guarded. The latter 
was throughout the superior interest, inseparably connected 
in men's minds with the support of the navy. At a later 

1 Macphersou, Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 485-486. 
^ Bryau Edwards, West Indies, vol. ii. p. 450. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 25 

date, West India sugar received the same indulgence as 
rice ; it being found that the French were gaining the gen- 
eral European market, by pennitting French vessels to carry 
the products of their islands direct to foreign continental 
ports. Rice and sugar for northern Europe, however, still 
had to be landed in England before proceeding. 

The colonial trade in general was made entirely subser- 
vient to the support and development of English shipping, 
and to the enrichment of England, as the half-way store- 
house. Into England foreign goods could be imported in 
some measure by foreign vessels, though under marked 
restrictions and tUsabilities ; but into the colonies it was 
early forbidden to import any goods, whatever their origin, 
except in English-built ships, commanded and manned in 
accordance with the Act. Further, even in such ships 
they must be imported from England itself, not direct; 
not from the country of origin. The motive for this stat- 
ute of 1663 ^ is avowed in the preamble : to be with a view 
of maintaining a greater correspondence and kindness be- 
tween them and the mother country, keeping the former 
in a firmer dependence upon the latter, and to make this 
kingdom the staple both of the commodities of the plan- 
tations, and of other countries in order to supply them. 
Further, it was alleged that it was the usage of nations 
to keep their plantation trade to themselves.^ In compen- 
sation for this subjection of their trade to the policy of 
the mother country, the supplying of the latter with West 
India products was reserved to the colonists. 

Thus, goods for the colonies, as well as those from the 
colonies, from or to a foreign country, — from or to France, 
for example, — must first be landed in England l)efore pro- 
ceeding to the ultimate destination. Yet even this cher- 
ished provision, enforced against the foreigner, was made 
to subserve the carrying trade — the leading object ; for, 
1 Officially, Statute of 15 Charles II. ^ Reeves, p. 50. 



26 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

upon re-exportation to the colonies, there was allowed a 
drawback of duties paid upon admission to England, and 
permanent upon residents there. The effect of this was to 
make the articles cheaper in the colonies than in England 
itself, and so to induce increased consumption. It was 
therefore to the profit of the carrier ; and the more ac- 
ceptable, because the shipping required to bring home 
colonial goods was much in excess of that required for 
outward cargoes, to the consequent lowering of outward 
freights. "A regard to the profits of freights," writes a 
contemporary familiar with the subject, " as much as the 
augmentation of seamen, dictated this policy." ^ From the 
conditions, it did not directly increase the number of sea- 
men ; but by helping the shipping merchant it supported 
the carrying industry as a whole. 

Upon the legislative union of Scotland with England, in 
1707, this entrepot privilege, with all other reserved advan- 
tages of English trade and commerce, was extended to the 
northern kingdom, and was a prominent consideration in 
inducing the Scotch people to accept a political change 
otherwise distasteful, because a seeming sacrifice of inde- 
j)endence. Before this time they liad had their own navi- 
gation system, modelled, on the English ; the Acts of the 
two parliaments embodying certain relations of reciprocity. 
Thenceforward, the Navigation Act is to be styled more 
properly a British, than an English, measure ; but its bene- 
fits, now common to all Great Britain, were denied still to 
Ireland. 

It will be realized that the habit of receiving exclusive 
favors at the expense of a particular set of people — the 
colonist and the foreigner — readily passed in a few gen- 
erations into an unquestioning conviction of the propriety, 
and of the necessity, of such measures. It should be easy 
now for those living under a high protective tariff to un- 

1 Chalmers, Opinions on Interesting Subjects, p. 28. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 27 

derstand that, having built up upon protection a principal 
national industiy, — the carrying trade, — involving in its 
ramifications the prosperity of a large proportion of the 
wealth-producers of the country, English statesmen would 
fear to touch the fabric in any important part; and that 
their dread would be intensified by the conviction, univer- 
sally held, that to remove any of these artificial supports 
would be to imperil at tlie same time the Royal Navy, the 
sudden expansion of which, from a peace to a war footing, 
depended upon impressment from the protected merchant 
sliips. / It will be seen also that with such precedents of 
entrepot, for the nourishing of British commerce, it was 
natural to turn to the same methods, — although in a form 
monstrously exaggerated, — when Napoleon by his decrees 
sought to starve British commerce to death. In conception 
and purpose, the Orders in Council of 1807 were simply 
a development of the entrepot system. Their motto, " No 
trade save through England," — the watchword of the min- 
istry of Canning, Castlereagh, and Perceval, 1807-12, — 
was merely the revival towards the United States, as an 
independent nation, of the methods observed towards her 
when an assemblage of colonies, forty years before ; the 
object in both cases being the welfare of Great Britain, 
involved in the monopoly of an important external com- 
merce, the material of which, being stored first in her ports, 
paid duty to her at the expense of continental consumers. 

Nor was there in the thought of the age, external to 
Great Britain, any corrective of the impressions which domi- 
nated her commercial policy. " Commercial monopoly," 
wrote Montesquieu, " is the leading principle of colonial 
intercourse ; " and an accomphshed West Indian, quoting 
this phrase about 1790, says: "The principles by which 
the nations of Europe were influenced were precisely the 
same: (1) to secure to themselves respectively the most 
important productions of their colonies, and (2) to retain 



28 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

to themselves exclusively the advantage of supplying the 
colonies with European goods and manufactures." ^ " I 
see," wrote John Adams from France, in 1784, " that the 
French merchants regard their colonies as English mer- 
chants considered us twenty 3^ears ago." The rigor of the 
Frencli colonial trade system had been relaxed during the 
War of American Independence, as was frequently done 
by all states during hostilities ; but when Louis XVI., 
in 1784, sought to continue this, though in an extremely 
qualified concession, allowing American vessels of under 
sixty tons a limited trade between the West Indies and 
their own country, the merchants of Marseilles, Bordeaux, 
Rochelle, Nantes, St. Malo, all sent in excited remonstrances, 
which found support in the provincial parliaments of Bor- 
deaux and Brittany .2 

A further indication of the economical convictions of the 
French people, and of the impression made upon Europe 
generally by the success of the British Navigation Act, is 
to be seen in the fact that in 1794, under the Republic, the 
National Convention issued a decree identical in spirit, and 
almost identical in terms, with the English Act of 1651. 
In the latter year, said the report of the Committee to the 
Convention, " one-half the navigation of England was car- 
ried on by foreigners. She has imperceptibly retaken her 
rights. Towards the year 1700 foreigners possessed no 
more than the fifth part of this navigation ; in 1725 only 
a little more than the ninth; in 1750 a little more than a 
twelfth ; and in 1791 they possessed only the fourteenth 
part of it." ^ It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the 
colonial system of Spain was as rigid as that of Great 
Britain, though far less capably administered. So univer- 

1 Bryan Edwards, West Indies, vol. ii. p. 443-444 (3(1 Edition). 

- Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 228. 

3 Compare with Sheffield, Ohservations on the Commerce of the Ameri- 
can States (Edition February, 1784), p. 137, note; from which, indeed, tliese 
figures seem to have been taken, or from some common source. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 29 

sal was tlie opinion of the day as to the relation of colonies 
to navigation, that a eontempoiary American, familiar with 
the general controversy, wrote : " Though speculative poli- 
ticians have entertained doubts in regard to favorable 
effects from colonial possessions, taking into view the 
expenses of their improvement, defence, and government, 
no question has been made but that the monopoly of their 
trade greatly increases the commei'ce of the nations to 
which they are appurtenant." ^ Yqvj soon after the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, the Congress of tlie United States, 
for the development of the carrying trade, enacted provi- 
sions analogous to the Navigation Act, so far as applicable 
to a nation having no colonies, but with large shipping and 
coasting interests to be favored. 

To such accepted views, and to such traditional practice, 
the independence of the thirteen British colonies upon the 
American continent came not only as a new political fact, 
but as a portentous breach in the established order of 
things. As sucli, it was regarded with uneasy jealousy 
b}^ both France and Spain ; but to Great Britain it was 
doubly ominous. Not only had she lost a reserved market, 
singly the most valuable she possessed, but she had re- 
leased, however unwillingly, a formidable and recognized 
rival for the carrying trade, the palladium of her naval 
strength. The market she was not without hopes of re- 
gaining, by a compulsion which, though less direct, would 
be in effect as real as that enforced by colonial regulation ; 
but the capacity of the Americans as carriers rested upon 
natural conditions not so easy to overcome. The difficulty 
of the problem was increased by the fact that the govern- 
ments of the world generally were awaking to the dis- 
proportionate advantages Great Britain had been reaping 
from them for more than a century, during which they had 

1 Coxe's View of the United States of America, Philadelphia, 1794, 
p. 330. 



30 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

listlessly acquiesced in her aggressive absorption of the car- 
riage of the seas. America could count upon their sym- 
pathies, and possible co-operation, in her rivalry with the 
British carrier. " It is manifest," wrote Coxe in 1794, 
" that a prodigious and almost universal revolution in the 
views of nations has taken place with regard to the car- 
rying trade." When John Adams spoke of the United 
States retaliating upon (jreat Britain, by enacting a similar 
measure of its own, the minister of Portugal, then a coun- 
try of greater weight than now, replied : " Not a nation in 
Europe would suffer a Navigation Act to be made by any 
other at this day. That of England was made in times of 
ignorance, when few nations cultivated commerce, and no 
country but she understood or cared anything about it, 
but now all courts are attentive to it ; " ^ so much so, in- 
deed, that it has been said this was the age of commercial 
treaties. It was the age also of commercial regulation, 
often mistaken and injurious, which found its ideals largely 
in the Navigation Act of Great Britain, and in the result- 
ant extraordinary processes of minute and comprehensive 
interference, with every species of commerce, and every 
article of export or import; for, while the general prin- 
ciples of the Navigation Act were few and simple enough, 
in application they entailed a watchful and constant bal- 
ancing of advantages by the Board of Trade, and a con- 
sequent manipulation of the course of commerce, — a 
perfectly idealized and sublimated protection. The days 
of its glory, however, were passing fast. Great Britain 
was now in the position of one who has been first to 
exploit a great invention, upon which he has an exclu- 
sive patent. Others were now entering the field, and she 
must prepare for competition, in which she most of all 

1 Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 341. Adams says again, himself : 
" It is more and more manifest every day that there is, and will continue, a 
general scramhle for navigation. Carrying trade, ship-building, fisheries, are 
tiie cry of every nation." — Vol. viii. p. 342. 



COLONIAL CONDiriONS 31 

feared those of her own blood, the children of her loins ; 
for the signs of the menacing conditions following the 
War of Independence had been apparent some time be- 
fore the revolt of the colonies gained for tliem liberty of 
action, heretofore checked in favor of the mother country. 
In these conditions, and in the national sentiment concern- 
ing them, are to be found the origin of a course of action 
which led to the War of 1812. 

Under the Navigation Act, and throughout the colonial 
period, the transatlantic colonies of Great Britain had 
grown steadily ; developing a commercial individuality of 
their own, depending in each upon local conditions. The 
variety of these, with the consequent variety of occupations 
and products, and the distance separating all from the 
mother country, had contributed to develop among them 
a certain degree of mutual dependence, and consequent 
exchange ; the outcome of which was a commercial system 
interior to the group as a whole, and distinct from the 
relations to Great Britain borne by them individually and 
collectively. There w^as a large and important intercolonial 
commerce,^ consistent with the letter of the Navigation 
Act, as well as a trade with Great Britain ; and although 
each of these exerted an influence upon the other, it was 
indirect and circuitous. The two were largely separate 
in fact, as well as in idea; and the interchange between 
the various colonies was more than double that with the 
mother country. It drew in British as well as American 
seamen, and was considered thus to entail the disadvantage 
that, unless America were tlie scene of war, the crews 
there were out of reach of impressment; that measure 

1 From an official statement, made public in 1784, it appears that in the 
year 1770 the total trade, inward and outward, of the colonies on the American 
Continent, amounted to 750,546 tons. Of this 32 per cent was coastwise, to 
other members of the group; 30 with the West Indies; 27 with Great Britain 
and Ireland; and 11 with Southern Europe. Bermuda and the Bahamas, in- 
considerable as to trade, were returned among coiitiuental colonies by the 
Custom House. — Sheffield, Commerce of the American States, Table VII. 



/ 



32 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

being too crude and unsystematic to reach effectively so 
distant a source of supply. Curiously enough, also, by an 
act passed in the reign of Queen Anne, seamen born in 
the American colonies were exempted from impressment.^ 
" During the late Civil War (of American Independence) 
it has been found difficult sufficiently to man our fleet, 
from the seamen insisting that, since they had been born 
in America, they could not be pressed to serve in the 
British navy." ^ In these conditions, and especially in the 
difficulty of distinguishing the place of birth by the lan- 
guage spoken, is seen the foreshadowing of the troubles 
attending the practice of Impressment, after the United 
States liad become a separate nation. 

The British American colonies were divided by geo- 
graphical conditions into two primary groups : those of tlie 
West India Islands, and those of the Continent. The 
common use of the latter term, in the thought and speech 
of the day, is indicated by the comprehensive adjective 
" Continental," familiarly applied to the Congress, troops, 
currency, and other attributes of sovereignty, assumed by 
the revolted colonies after their declaration of independ- 
ence. Each group had special commercial characteristics 

— in itself, and relatively to Great Britain. The islands, 
whatever their minor differences of detail, or their mutual 
jealousies, or even their remoteness from one another, — 
Jamaica being a thousand miles from her eastern sisters, 

— were essentially a homogeneous body. Similarity of lati- 
tude and climate induced similarity of social and econom- 
ical conditions ; notably in the dependence on slave labor, 
upon which the industrial fabric rested. Their products, 
among which sugar and coffee were the most important, 
were such as Europe did not yield ; it was therefore to 
their advantage to expend labor upon these wholly, and 
to depend upon external sources for supplies of all kinds, 

^ Chalmers, Opinious, p. 73. ^ IbiJ., p. 18. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 33 

including food. Their exports, being directed by the Navi- 
gation Act almost entirely upon Great Britain, were, in 
connection with Virginia tobacco, the most lucrative of the 
" enumerated " articles which rendered tribute to the entre- 
pot monopoly of the mother country. It was in this respect 
particularly, as furnishing imports to be handled and re- 
exported, that the islands were valuable to the home 
merchants. To the welfaie of the body politic they contri!)- 
uted by their support of the carrying trade ; for tlie car- 
goes, being bulky, required much tonnage, and the entire 
traffic was confined to British ships, manned three-fourths 
by British seamen. As a market also the islands were of 
consequence ; all their .supplies coming, by law, either from 
or through Great Britain, or from the continental colonies. 
Intercourse with foreign states w^as prohibited, and that 
with foreign colonies allowed only under rare and dis- 
abling conditions. But although the West Indies thus 
maintained a large part of the mother country's export 
trade, the smallness of their population, and the simple 
necessities of the slaves, who formed the great majority of 
the inhabitants, rendered them as British customers much 
inferior to the continental colonies ; and this disparity was 
continually increasing, for the continent was growing rap- 
idly in numbers, wealth, and requirements. In the five 
years 1744-48, the exports from Great Britain to the 
two quarters were nearly equal; but a decade later the 
continent took double the amount that the islands de- 
manded. The figures quoted for the period 1754-58 
are: to the West Indies, ,£3,765,000; to North America, 
X 7,410,000.1 Ij^ ti^e f^^g yg.-^^,g ending 1774 the West 
Indies received £6,748,095 ; the thirteen continental colo- 
nies, £13,660,180.2 

Imports from the continent also supported the carrying 

1 Macphersou, vol. iii. p. 317. 

•- Report of Committee of Privy Council, Jan. 28, 1791, pp. 21-23. 
VOL. I. — 3 



34 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

trade of Great Britain, but not to an extent proportionate 
to those from the islands ; for many of the continental colo- 
nies were themselves large carriers. The imports to them, 
being manufactured articles, less bulky than the exports of 
the islands, also required less tonnage. The most marked 
single difference between the West India communities and 
those of the continent was that the latter, being distrib- 
uted on a nearly north and south line, with consequent 
great divergences of climate and products, were essentially 
not homogeneous. What one had, another had not. Such 
differences involve of course divergence of interests, with 
consequent contentions and jealousies, the influence of 
V which was felt most painfully prior to the better Union 
of 1789, and never can wholly cease to act ; but, on the 
other hand, it tends also to })romote exchange of offices, 
where need and facility of transport combine to make such 
exchange beneficial to both. That the intercourse between 
the continental colonies required a tonnage equal to that 
employed between them and the West Indies, — testified 
by the return of 1770 before quoted,^ — shows the exist- 
ence of conditions destined inevitably to draw them to- 
gether. The recognition of such mutual dependence, when 
once attained, furthers tlie practice of mutual concession 
for the purpose of combined action. Consequently, in the 
protracted struggle between the centripetal and centrifugal 
forces in North America, the former prevailed, though not 
till after long and painful wavering. 

While thus differing greatly among themselves in the 
nature of their productions, and in their consequent wants, 
the continental colonists as a whole had one common char- 
acteristic. Recent occupants of a new, unimproved, and 
generally fertile country, they turned necessarily to tlie 
cultivation of tlie soil as the most remunerative form of 
activity, while for manufactured articles tliey depended 

1 Ante, p. 31 (uote). 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 35 

mainly upon external supplies, the furnishing of which 
Great RriUiin reserved to herself. For these reasons they 
afforded the great market which tliey were to her, and 
which by dint of habit and of interest they long continued 
to be. Bat, while thus generally agricultural by force of 
circumstances, the particular outward destinations of their 
surplus products varied. Those of the southern colonies, 
from Maryland to Georgia, were classed as " enumerated," 
and, with the exception of the rice of South Carolina and 
Georgia, partially indulged as before mentioned, must be 
directed upon Great Britain. Tobacco, cotton, indigo, 
pitch, tar, turpentine, and spars of all kinds for ships, 
were specifically named, and constituted much the lai-ger 
part of tlie exports of those colonies. These were carried 
also chiefly by British vessels, and not by colonial. The 
case was otherwise in the middle colonies, Pennsylvania, 
New York, New Jersey, and in Connecticut and Rhode 
Island of the eastern group. They were exporters of pro- 
visions, — of grain, flour, and meat, the latter both as live 
stock and salted; of horses also. As the policy of the 
day protected the British farmer, these articles were not 
required to be sent to Great Britain ; on the contrary, 
grain was not allowed admission except in times of scar- 
city, determined by the price of wheat in the London 
market. The West Indies, therefore, were the market 
of the middle colonies ; the shortness of the voyage, and 
the comparatively good weather, after a little southing 
had been gained, giving a decisive advantage over Euro- 
pean dealers in the transportation of live animals. Flour 
also, because it kept badly in the tropics, required constant 
carriage of new supplies from sources near at hand. Along 
with provisions the continental vessels took materials for 
building and cooperage, both essential to the industry of 
the islands, — to the housing of the inhabitants, and to the 
transport of their sugar, rum, and molasses. In short, so 



36 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

great was the dependence of the islands upiin this trade, 
that a well-infonned planter of the time quotes with 
approval the remark of " a very competent judge," that, 
" if the continent had been wholly in foreign hands, and 
England wholly precluded from intercourse with it, it is 
very doubtful whether we should now have possessed a 
single acre in the West Indies." ^ 

Now this traffic, while open to all British shipping, was 
very largely in the hands of the colonists, who built ships 
decidedly cheaper than could be done in England, and 
could distribute their tonnage in vessels too small to brave 
the Atlantic safely, but, from their numbers and size, fitted 
to scatter to the numerous small ports of distribution, 
which the badness of internal communications rendered 
advantageous for purposes of supply. A committee of the 
Privy Council of Great Britain, constituted soon after the 
independence of the United States to investigate the condi- 
tions of West India trade, reported that immediately before 
the revolt the carriage between the islands and the conti- 
nent had occupied 1610 voyages, in vessels aggregating 
115,634 tons, navigated by 9718 men. These transported 
what was then considered " the vast " American cargo, of 
£500,000 outward and £400,000 inward. But the ominous 
feature from the point of view of the Navigation Act 
w^as that this was carried almost wholly in American bot^ 
toms.^ In short, not to speak of an extensive practice 
of smug^gling, facilitated b}' a coast line too long and 
indented to be effectually watched, — mention of which 
abounds in contemporary annals,^ — a very valuable part of 
the British carrying trade was in the hands of the middle 
colonists, whose activity, however, did not stop even there ; 

1 Bryan Edwards, West Indies, vol. ii. p. 486. 

^ Chalmers, Opinions, p. 133. 

3 See, for instance, the Golden Papers, Proceediu";.^ N. Y. Historical So- 
ciety, 1877. There is in tliese niucii curious economical information of other 
kinds. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 37 

for, not only did they deal with foreign West Indies,^ but 
the cheapness of tlieir vessels, owing to the abundance of 
the materials, permitted them to be used also to advan- 
tage in a direct trade with southern Europe, their native 
products being for the most part "not enumerated." As 
early as 1731, Pennsylvania employed eight thousand tons 
of shipping, wliile the New England colonies at the same 
time owned forty thousand tons, distributed in six hundred 
vessels, manned by six thousand seamen. 

The New Englanders, like their countrymen farther 
south, were mostly farmers ; but the more rugged soil 
and severer climate gave them little or no surplus for 
export. For gain by traffic, for material for exchange, 
they therefore turned to the sea, and became the great 
carriers of America, as well as its fjreat fishers. An Encr- 
lish authority, writing of the years immediately preceding 
the War of Independence, states that most of the seamen 
sailing out of the southern ports were British; from the 
middle colonies, half British and half American ; but in 
the New England shipping he admits three-fourths were 
natives.^ This tendency of British seamen to take employ- 
ment in colonial ships is worthy of note, as foreshadowing 
the impressment difficulties of a later day. These, like 
most of the disagreements which led to the War of 1812, 
had their origin in ante-revolutionary conditions. Eor 
example, Commodore Palliser, an officer of mark, com- 
manding the Newfoundland station in 1767, reported to 
the Admiralty the " cruel custom," long practised by 
conunanders of fishing ships, of leaving many men on the 
desert coast of Newfoundland, when the season was over, 

1 A comparison of the figures just quoted, as to the British West Indies, 
with Sheffield's Table VII., indicates that the trade of the Continent with 
tlie foreign islands about eijualled that with the British. 'I"he trade witli. tlie 
French West Indies, " open or clandestine, was considerable, and wholly in 
American vessels." — Macpherson, vol. iii. p. 584. 

'^ Sheffield, Commerce of the American States, p. 108. 



38 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

whereby " these men were obliged to sell themselves to 
the colonists, or piratically run off with vessels, which 
they carry to the continent of America. By these practices 
the Newfoundland fishery, supposed to be one of the most 
valuable nurseries for seamen,^ has long been an annual 
drain." '^ In the two years, 1764-65, he estimates that 
2,500 seamen thus went to the colonies ; in the next two 
years, 400. The difference was probably due to the former 
period being immediately after a war, the effects of which 
it reflected. 

The general conditions of 1731 remained thirty years 
later, simply having become magnified as the colonies grew 
in wealth and population. In 1770 twenty -two thousand 
tons of shipping were annually built by the continental col- 
onists. They even built ships for Great Britain ; and this 
indulgence, for so it was considered, was viewed jealously 
by a class of well-informed men, intelligent, but fully im- 
bued with the ideas of the Navigation Act, convinced that 
the carrying trade was the corner-stone of the British Navy, 
and realizing that where ships were cheaply built they could 
be cheaply sailed, even if they paid higher wages. It is 
true, and should be sedulously remembered, especially now 
in the United States, that the strength of a merchant ship- 
ping lies in its men even more than in its ships ; and there- 
fore that the policy of a country which wishes a merchant 
marine should be to allow its ships to be purchased where 
they most cheaply can, in order tliat the owner may be able 
to spend more on his crew, and the nation consequently to 
keep more seamen under its flag. But in 1770 the relative 
conditions placed Great Britain under serious disadvan- 
tages towards America in the matter of ship-building ; for 
the heavy drafts upon her native oak had caused the price 
to rise materially, and even the forests of continental Eu- 

1 That is, for the navy. 

- Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. p. 472. 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 39 

rope felt the strain, while the colonies had scarcely bogjun 
to touch their resources. In 1775, more than one-third of 
the foreign trade of (xreat Britain was carried in Aiueri- 
cau-built ships ; the respective tonnage being, British-built, 
605,545; American, 373,618.1 

British merchants and ship-owners knew also that the 
colonial carriers were not ardent adherents of the Naviga- 
tion Act, but conducted their operations in conformity with 
it only when compelled.^ They traded with the foreigner 
as readily as with the British subject ; and, wliat was quite 
unpardonable in the ideas of that time, after selling a cargo 
in a West Indian port, instead of reloading there, they 
W'Ould take the hard cash of the island to a French neigh- 
bor, buying of him molasses to be made into rum at home. 
In this commercial shrewdness the danger was not so 
much in the local loss, or in the single transaction, for in 
the commercial supremacy of England the money was 
pretty sure to find its way back to the old country. The 
sting was that the sharp commercial instinct, roving from 
port to port, with a keen scent for freight and for bargains, 
maintained a close rivalry for the carrying trade, which 
was doubly severe from the natural advantages of the 
shipping and the natural aptitudes of the ship-owners. 
Already the economical attention of the New Englanders 
to the details of their shipping business had been noted, 
and had earned for them the name of the Dutchmen of 

1 Macpherson, vol. iv. p. 11. The great West India cargo of 1772, an 
especial preserve of the Navigation Act, was carried to England in 679 ships, 
of which one-third were built in America. 

2 " The contraband trade carried on by plantation ships in defiance of the 
Act of Navigation was a subject of repeated complaint." " The laws of Navi- 
gation were nowhere disobeyed and contemned so openly as in New England. 
The people of Massachusetts Bay were from the first disposed to act as if 
independent of the mother country." — Reeves, pp. 54, 58. The particular 
quotations apply to the early days of the measure, 1662-3; but the com- 
plaint continued to the end. In 1764-5, "one of the great grievances in the 
American trade was, that great quantities of foreign molasses and syrups 
were clandestinely run on shore in the British Colonies." — p. 79. 



40 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

North America ; an epithet than which there was then 
none more ominous to British ears, and especially' where 
with tlie carrying trade was associated the twin idea of a 
nursery of seamen for the British Navy. 

A fair appreciation of the facts and relations, summarized 
in the preceding pages from an infinitude of details, is 
necessary to a correct view of the origin and course of the 
misunderstandings and disagreements which finall}- led to 
the War of 1812. In 1783, the restoration of peace and 
the acknowledgment of the independence of the former 
colonies removed from commerce the restrictions incident 
to hostilities, and replaced in full action, essentially un- 
changed, the natural conditions which had guided the 
course of trade in colonial days. The old country, retain- 
ing all the prepossessions associated with the now vener- 
able and venerated Navigation Act, saw herself confronted 
with the revival of a commercial system, a commercial inde- 
pendence, of which she had before been jealous, and which 
could no longer be controlled by political dependence. It 
was to be feared that supplying the British West Indies 
would increase American shipping, and that British seamen 
would more and more escape into it, with consequent loss 
to British navigation, both in tonnage and men, and dis- 
couragement to British maritime industries. Hence, by 
the ideas of the time, was to be apprehended weakness 
for war, unless some effective check could be devised. 

What would have been the issue of these anxieties, and 
of the measures to which they gave rise, had not the French 
Kevolution intervened to aggravate the distresses of Great 
Britain, and to constrain her to violent methods, is bootless 
to discuss. It remains true that, both before and during 
the conflict with tlie French Republic and Empire, the 
general character of her actions, to which the United 
States took exception, was determined by the conditions 
and ideas that have been stated, and can be understood 



COLONIAL CONDITIONS 41 

only through reference to them. No sooner had peace been 
signed, in 1783, than disagreements sprang up again from 
the old roots of colonial systems and ideals. To these 
essentially was due the detailed sequence of events which, 
influenced by such traditions of opinion and policy as have 
been indicated, brought on the War of 1812, which has 
not inaptly been styled the second War of Independence. 
Madison, who was contemporary with tlie entire contro- 
versy, and officially connected with it from 1801 to the 
end of the war, first as Secretary of State, and later as 
President, justly summed up his experience of the whole 
in these words : " To have shrunk from resistance, under j 
such circumstances, would have acknowledged that, on the 
element which forms three-fourths of the globe which we 
inhabit, and where all independent nations have equal and 
common rights, the American People were not an inde- 
pendent people, but colonists and vassals. With such an 
alternative war was chosen." ^ The second war was closely 
related to the first in fact, though separated by a generation 
in time. 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Eelations, vol. i. p. 82. 



CHAPTER II 

FKOM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY, 1794 

THE colonial connection between Great Britain 
and the thirteen conununities which became 
the original States of the American Union was 
brought to a formal conclusion in 1776, by 
their Declaration of Independence. Substantially, how- 
ever, it had already terminated in 1774. This year was 
marked by the passage of the Boston Port Bill, with its 
accessory measures, by the British Parliament, and likewise 
by the renewal, in the several colonies, of the retaliatory 
non-importation agreements of 1765. The fundamental 
theory of the eighteenth century concerning the relations 
between a mother country and her colonies, tliat of recip- 
rocal exclusive benefit, had thus in practice yielded to one 
of mutual injury ; to coercion and deprivation on the one 
side, and to passive resistance on the other. On Septem- 
ber 5 the representatives of twelve colonies assembled in 
Philadelphia; Georgia alone sending no delegates, but 
pledging herself in anticipation to accept the decisions 
taken b}^ the others. One of the first acts of this Congress 
of the Continental Colonies was to indorse the resolutions 
by which Massachusetts had placed herself in an attitude 
of contingent rebellion against the Crown, and to pledge 
their support to her in case of a resort to arms. These 
several steps were decisive and irrevocable, except by an 
unqualified abandonment, by one party or the other, of 
the principles wliich underlay and dictated them. The 
die was cast. To use words attributed to George the 
Third, " the colonies must now either submit or triumph." 
The period which lie re began, viewed in the aggre- 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 43 

gate of the national life of the United States, was one 
of wavering transition and nncertain issue in matters 
political and conmiercial. Its ending, in these two par- 
ticulars, is marked by two conspicuous events : the adop- 
tion of the Constitution and the Commercial Treaty with 
(Jreat Britain. The formation of the Federal Government, 
1788-90, gave to the Union a political stability it had 
hitherto lacked, removing elements of weakness and dis- 
sensions, and of consequent impotence in foreign relations ; 
the manifestation of which since the acknowledsrment of 
independence had justified alike the hopes of enemies and 
the forebodings of friends. Settled conditions l^eing thus 
established at home, with institutions competent to regu- 
late a national commerce, internal and external, as well 
as to bring the people as a whole into fixed relations 
with foreign communities, there was laid the foundations 
of a swelling prosperity to which the several parts of the 
country jointly contributed. The effects of these changes 
were soon shown in a growing readiness on the part of 
other nations to enter into formal compacts with us. Of 
this, the treaty negotiated by John Jay with Great Britain, 
in 1794, is the most noteworthy instance ; partly because 
it terminated one long series of bickerings with our most 
dangerous neighbor, chiefly because the commercial power 
of the state with which it was contracted had reached a 
greater eminence, and exercised wider international effect, 
than any the modern world had then seen. 

Whatever the merits of the treaty otherwise, therefore, 
the willingness of Great Britain to enter into it at all gave 
it an epochal significance. Since independence, commercial 
intercourse between the two peoples had rested on the 
strong compelling force of natural conditions and reciprocal 
convenience, the true foundation, doubtless, of all useful 
relations ; but its regulation had been by municipal ordi- 
nance of either state, changeable at will, not by mutual 



44 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

agreement binding on both for a prescribed period. Since 
the separation, this condition had seemed preferable to 
Great Britain, which, as late as 1790, had evatled overtures 
towards a commercial arrangement.^ Her consenting now 
to modify her position was an implicit admission that in 
trade, as in political existence, the former mother country- 
recognized at last the independence of her offspring. The 
latter, however, was again to learn that independence, 
to be actual, must rest on something stronger than words, 
and surer than the acquiescence of others. This was to 
be the lesson of the years between 1794 and 1815, adminis- 
tered to us not only by the preponderant navy of Great 
Britain, but by the petty piratical fleets of the Barbary 
powers. 

From the Boston Port Bill to Jay's Treaty was therefore 
a period of transition from entire colonial dependence, 
under complete regulation of all commercial intercourse 
by the mother country, to that of national commercial 
power, self-regulative and efficient, through the adoption 
of the Constitution. Upon this followed international 
influence, the growing importance of which Great Britain 
finally recognized by formal concessions, hitherto refused 
or evaded. During these years the pohcy of her govern- 
ment was undergoing a process of adjustment, conditioned 
on the one hand by the still vigorous traditional prejudices 
associated with the administration of dependencies, and on 
the other by the radical change in political relations be- 
tween her remaining colonies in America and the new states 
which had broken from the colonial bond. This change 
was the more embarrassing, because the natural connection 
of specific mutual usefulness remained, although the tie of 
a common allegiance had been loosed. The old order was 
yielding to the new, but the process was signalized by 
the usual slowness of men to accept events in their full 

^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i, p. 121. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 45 

significance- Hitherto, all the western hemisphere had 
been under a colonial system of complete monopoly by 
mother countries, and had been generally excluded from 
direct communication witli Europe, except the respective 
parent states. In the comprehensive provisions of the 
British Navigation Act, America was associated with Asia 
and Africa. Now had arisen there an independent state, in 
political standing identical with those of Europe, yet having 
towards colonial America geographical and commercial re- 
lations very different from theirs. Consequently there was 
novelty and difficulty in tlie question. What intercourse 
with the remaining British dominions, and especially with 
the American colonies, should be permitted to the new 
nation ? Notwithstanding the breach lately made, it con- 
tinued a controlling aim with the British people, and of the 
government as determined by popular pressure, to restore 
the supremacy of British trade, by the subjection of 
America, independent as well as colonial, to the welfare of 
British commerce. Notably this was to be so as regards 
the one dominant interest called Navigation, under which 
term was comprised everything relating to shipping, — ship- 
building, seafaring men, and the carrying trade. Inde- 
pendence had deprived Great Britain of the right she 
formerly had to manipulate the course of the export and 
import trade of the now United States. It remained to 
try whether there did not exist, nevertheless, the ability 
effectually to control it to the advantage of British naviga- 
tion, as above defined. "Our remaining colonies on the 
Continent, and the West India Islands," it was argued, 
"with the favorable state of English manufactures, may 
still give us almost exclusively the trade of America;" 
provided these circumstances were suitably utilized, and 
their advantages rigorously enforced, where power to do so 
.still remained, as it did in the West Indies. 

Although by far the stronger and more flourishing part 



46 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

of her colonial dominions had been wrested from Great 
Britain, there yet remained to her upon the continent, in 
Canada and the adjacent provinces, a domain great in area, 
and in the West India Islands another of great productive- 
ness. Whatever wisdom had been learned as regards the 
political treatment of colonies, the views as to the nature 
of their economical utility to the mother country, and their 
consequent commercial regulation, had undergone no en- 
larofement, but rather had been intensified in narrowness 
and rigor by the loss of so valuable a part of the whole. 
No counteractive effect to this prepossession was to be 
found in contemporary opinion in Europe. The French 
Kevolution itself, subversive as it was of received views 
in many respects, was at the first characterized rather by 
an exaggeration of the traditional exclusive pohcy of the 
eighteenth century relating to colonies, shipping, and com- 
merce. In America, the unsettled commercial and finan- 
cial conditions which succeeded the peace, the divergence 
of interests between the several new states, the feebleness 
of the confederate government, its incompetency to deal 
assuredly with external questions, and lack of all power 
to regulate commerce, inspired a conviction in Great Brit- 
ain that the continent could not offer strong, continued 
resistance to commercial aggression, carried on under the 
peaceful form of municipal regulation. It was generally 
thought that the new states could never unite, but instead 
would drift farther apart. 

The belief was perfectly reasonable ; a gift of prophecy 
only could have foretold the happy result, of which many 
of the most prominent Americans for some time despaired. 
" It will not be an easy matter," wrote Lord Shefifield,^ " to 
bring the American States to act as a nation ; they are not 
to be feared as such by us. It must be a long time before 
they can engage, or will concur, in any material expense, 

1 Commerce of the American States (Edition February, 1784), pp. 198-199. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JATS TREATY 47 

. . . We might as reasonably dread the effects of combina- 
tions among the German as among the American states, 
and deprecate the resolves of the Diet, as those of Con- 
gress." " No treaty can be made that will be binding on 
the whole of them." "A decided cast has been given to 
public opinion here," wrote John Adams from London, in 
November, 1785, " by two presumptions. One is, that the 
American states are not, and cannot, be united." ^ Two 
years later Washington wrote : " The situation of the Gen- 
eral Government, if it can be called a government, is 
shaken to its foundation, and liable to be overturned at 
every blast. In a word, it is at an end. . . . The primary 
cause of all our disorders lies in the different state govern- 
ments, and in the tenacity of that power which underlies 
the whole of their systems. Independent sovereignty is so 
ardently contended for." " At present, under our existing 
form of confederation, it would be idle to think of makinsr 
commercial regulations on our part. One state passes a 
prohibitory law respecting one article ; another state opens 
wide the avenue for its admission. One assembly makes 
a system, another assembly unmakes it." ^ 

Under such conditions it was natural that a majority of 
Englishmen should see power and profit for Great Britain 
in availing herself of the weakness of her late colonists, to 
enforce upon them a commercial dependence as useful as 
the political dependence which had passed away. Were 
this realized, she would enjoy the emoluments of the land 
without the expense of its protection. This gospel was 
preached at once to willing ears, and found acceptance ; not 
by the strength of its arguments, for these, though plausi- 
ble, were clearly inferior in weight to the facts copiously 
adduced by those familiar with conditions, but through the 

^ Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 290. 

^ Washingtou's Correspoudence, 1787, edited by W. C. Ford, vol. viii. 
pp. 159, 160, 254. 



48 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

j)rejudices which the then generation had received from 
the three or four preceding it. Tlie policy being adopted, 
the instrument at hand for enforcing it was the relation of 
colonies to mother countries, as then universally maintained 
by the governments of the day. The United States, Uke 
other independent nations, was to be excluded wholly from 
carrying trade with the British colonies, and as far as 
possible from sending them supplies. It was urged that 
Canada, and the adjacent Biitish dominions, encouraged by 
this reservation of the West India market for their prod- 
uce, would prove adequate to furnishing the provisions 
and lumber previously derived from the old continental 
colonies. The prosperity once enjoyed by the latter would 
be transferred, and there would be reconstituted the system 
of commercial intercourse, interior to the empire, which 
previously had commanded general admiration. The new 
states, acting commercially as separated communities, could 
oppose no successful rivalry to this combination, and would 
revert to isolated commercial dependence ; tributary to the 
financial supremacy of Great Britain, as they recently had 
been to her political power. In debt to her for money, 
and drawing from her manufactures, returns for both would 
compel their exports to her ports chiefly, whence distribu- 
tion would be, as of old, in the hands of British middle- 
men and navigators. Just escaped from the fetters of the 
carrying trade and entrepSt regulations, the twin monopo- 
lies in which consisted the value of a colonial empire, it 
was proposed to reduce them again under bondage by 
means for which the West India Islands furnished the lev- 
erage ; for " the trade carried on by Great Britain with the 
countries now become the United States was, and still is, 
so connected with the trade carried on to the remaining 
British colonies in America, and tlie British islands in the 
West Indies, that it is impossible to form a true judgment 
of the past and present of the first, without taking a com- 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 49 

prehensive view of all, as they are connected with, and 
influence, each other." ^ 

Before the peace of 1783, the writings of Adam Smith 
had gravely shaken belief in the mercantile system of ex- 
traordinary trade regulation and protection as conducive 
to national prosperity. Though undermined, however, it 
had not been overthrown ; and even to doubters there re- 
mained the exception, which Smith himself admitted, of 
the necessity to protect navigation as a nursery for the 
navy, and consequently as a fundamental means of na- 
tional defence. Existence takes precedence of prosperity ; 
the life is more than the meat. Commercial regulation, 
though unfitted to increase wealth, could be justified as a 
means to promote ship-building ; to retain ship-builders in 
the country ; to husband the raw materials of their work ; 
to force the transport of merchandise in British-built ships 
and by British seamen ; and thus to induce capital to in- 
vest, and men to embark their lives, in maritime trade, to 
the multiplication of ships and seamen, the chief depend- 
ence of the nation in w^ar. " Keeping ships for freight," 
said Sheffield, " is not the most profitable branch of trade. 
It is necessary, for the sake of our marine, to force or en- 
courage it by exclusive advantages." " Comparatively 
with the number of our people and the extent of our 
country, we are doomed almost always to wage unequal 
war; and as a means of raising seamen it cannot be too 
often repeated that it is not possible to be too jealous on 
the head of navigation." He proceeds then at once to 
draw the distinction between the protection of navigation 
and that of commerce generally. " This jealousy should 
not be confounded with that towards neighboring countries 
as to trade and manufactures ; nor is the latter jealousy in 
many instances reasonable or well founded. Competition 
is useful, forcing our manufacturers to act fairly, and to 

1 Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, Jan. 28, 1791, p. 20. 
VOL. I. — 4 



50 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

work reasonably." Sheffield was the most conspicuous, and 
probably the most influential, of the controversialists on 
this side of the question at this period ; the interest of the 
public is shown by his pamphlet passing through six edi- 
tions in a twelvemonth. He was, liowever, far from sin- 
gular in this view. Chalmers, a writer of much research, 
said likewise : " In these considerations of nautical force 
and public safety we discover the fundamental principle 
of Acts of Navigation, which, though established in opposi- 
tion to domestic and foreign clamors, have produced so 
great an augmentation of our native shipping and sailors, 
and which therefore should not be sacrificed to any proj- 
ects of private gain," — that is, of commercial advantage. 
" There are intelligent persons who suggest that the im- 
posing of alien duties on alien ships, rather than on alien 
merchandise, would augment our naval strength." ^ 

Colonies therefore were esteemed desirable to this end 
chiefly. To use the expression of a French officer, ^ 
they were the fruitful nursery of seamen. French writers 
of that day considered their West India islands the chief 
nautical support of the state. But in order to secure 
this, it was necessary to exercise complete control of their 
trade inward and outward ; of the supplies they needed 
as well as of the products they raised, and especially to 
confine the carriage of both to national shipping. " The 
only use and advantage of the (remaining) American 
colonies^ or West India islands to Great Britain," says 
Sheffield, "are the monopoly of their consumption and 
the carriage of their produce. It is the advantage to our 
navigation which in any degree countervails the enormous 
expense of protecting our islands. Rather than give up 
their carrying trade it would be better to give up them- 

1 Chalmers, Opinions, p. 32. 

2 Jurien de la Graviere, Guerres Maritime^, Paris, 1847, vol. ii. p. 238. 
8 Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, etc. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 51 

selves." The entrepot system herein found additional 
justification, for not only did it foster navigation by the 
homeward voyage, confined to British ships, and extort 
toll in transit, but the re-exportation made a double 
voyage which was more than doubly fruitful in sea- 
men ; for from the nearness of the British Islands to the 
European continent, which held the great body of con- 
sumers, this second carriage could be done, and actu- 
ally was done, by numerous small vessels, able to bear 
a short voyage but not to brave an Atlantic passage. 
Economically, trade by many small vessels is more expen- 
sive than by a few large, because for a given aggregate 
tonnage it requires many more men ; but this economical 
loss was thought to be more than compensated by the po- 
litical gain in multiplying seamen. It was estimated in 
1795 that there was a difference of from thirty-five to 
forty men in carrying the same quantity of goods in one 
large or ten small vessels. This illustrates aptly the 
theory of the Navigation Act, which sought wealth indeed, 
but, as then understood, subordinated that consideration 
distinctly to the superior need of increasing the resources 
of the country in ships and seamen. Moreover, the men 
engaged in these short voyages were more immediately 
at hand for impressment in war, owing to the narrow 
range of their expeditions and their frequent returns to 
home ports. 

In 1783, therefore, the Navigation Act had become in 
general acceptance a measure not merely commercial, but 
military. It was defended chiefly as essential to the naval 
power of Great Britain, which rested upon the sure foun- 
dation of maritime resources thus laid. Nor need this 
view excite derision to-day, for it compelled then the 
adhesion of an American who of all in his time was most 
adverse to the general commercial policy of Great Britain. 
In a report on the subject made to Congress in 1793, by 



52 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Jefferson, as Secretary of State, he said: "Our navigation 
involves still higher considerations than our commerce. 
As a branch of industry it is valuable, but as a resource 
of defence essential. It will admit neither neglect nor 
forbearance. The position and circumstances of the United 
States leave them nothing to fear on their land-board ; . . . 
but on their seaboard they are open to injury, and they 
have there too a commerce (coasting) which must be pro- 
tected. This can only be done by possessing a respectable 
body of citizen-seamen, and of artists and establishments 
in readiness for ship-building." ^ The limitations of Jeffer- 
son's views appear here clearly, in the implicit relegation 
of defence, not to a regular and trained navy, but to the 
occasional unskilled efforts of a distinctly civil force ; but 
no stronger recognition of the necessities of Great Britain 
could be desired, for her nearness to the great military 
states of the world deprived her land-board of the security 
which the remoteness of the United States assured. With 
such stress laid upon the vital importance of merchant sea- 
men to national safety, it is but a step in thought to per- 
ceive how inevitable was the jealousy and indignation felt 
in Great Britain, when she found her fleets, both com- 
mercial and naval, starving for want of seamen, who had 
sought refuge from war in the American merchant service, 
and over whom the American Government, actually weak 
and but yesterday vassal, sought to extend its protection 
from impressment. 

Up to the War of American Independence, the singular 
geographical situation of Great Britain, inducing her to 
maritime enterprise and exempting her from territorial 
warfare, with the financial and commercial pre-eminence she 
had then maintained for three-fourths of a century, gave 
her peculiar advantages for enforcing a policy wliich until 
that time had thriven conspicuously, if somewhat illusively, 

1 American State Papers, Foi-eigu Relations, vol. i. p. 303. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 53 

in its commercial results, and had substantially attained its 
especial object of maritime preponderance. Other peoples 
had to submit to the compulsion exerted by her overween- 
ing superiority. The obligation upon foreign shipping to 
be three-fourths manned by their own citizens, for instance, 
rested only upon a British law, and applied only in a 
British port ; but the accumulations of British capital, 
with the consequent facility for mercantile operations and 
ability to extend credits, the development of British manu- 
factures, the extent of the British carrying trade, the en- 
forced storage of colonial products in British territory, 
with the correlative obligation that foreign goods for her 
numerous and increasing colonists must first be brought 
to her shores and thence transshipped, — all these cir- 
cumstances made the British islands a centre for export 
and import, towards which foreign sliipping was unavoid- 
ably drawn and so brought under the operation of tlie law. 
The nation had so far out-distanced competition that her 
supremacy was unassailable, and remained unimpaired for 
a century longer. To it had contributed powerfully the 
economical distribution of her empire, greatly diversified 
in particulars, yet symmetrical in the capacity of one 
part to supply what the other lacked. There was in tlie 
whole a cei'tain self-sufficingness, resembling that claimed 
in this age for the United States, with its compact 
territory but wide extremes of boundary, climates, and 
activities. 

This condition, while it lasted, in large degree justified 
the Navigation Act, which may be summarily character- 
ized as a great protective measure, applied to the peculiar 
conditions of a particular maritime empire, insuring re- 
ciprocal and exclusive benefit to the several parts. It 
was uncompromisingly logical in its action, not hesitating 
at rigid prohibition of outside competition. Protection, 
in its best moral sense, may be defined as the regulation of 



54 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

all the business of the nation, considered as an interrelated 
whole, by the Government, for the best interests of the 
entire community, likewise regarded as a whole. This 
the Navigation Act did for over a century after its enact- 
ment ; and it may be plausibly argued that, as a war resort 
at least, it afterwards measurably strengthened the hands 
of Great Britain during the wars of the French Revolu- 
tion. No men suffered more than did the West India 
planters from its unrelieved enforcement after 1783 ; yet in 
their vehement remonstrance they said : " The policy of the 
Act is justly popular. Its regulations, until the loss of 
America, under the various relaxations which Parliament 
has applied to particular events and exigencies as they 
arose, have guided the course of trade without oppressing 
it; for the markets which those regulations left open to the 
consumption of the produce of the colonies were sufficient 
to take off the whole, and no foreign country could have 
supplied the essential part of their wants materially cheaper 
than the colonies of the mother country could supply one 
another." 

Thus things were, or were thought to be, up to the time 
when the revolt of the continental colonies made a breach 
in the wall of reciprocal benefit by which the whole had 
been believed to be enclosed. The products of the colo- 
nies sustained the commercial prosperity of the mother 
country, ministering to her export trade, and supplying a 
reserve of consumers for her monopoly of manufactures, 
which they were forbidden to establish for themselves, or 
to receive from foreigners. She on her part excluded 
from the markets of the empire foreign articles which her 
colonies produced, constituting for them a monopoly of the 
imperial home market, as well in Great Britain as in the 
isister colonies. The carriage of the whole was confined to 
British navigation, the maintenance of which by this 
means raised the British Navy to the mastery of the seas, 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 55 

enabling it to afford to the entire system a protection, of 
which convincing and brilliant evidence had been afforded 
during the then recent Seven Years' War. As a matter of 
political combination and adjustment, for peace or for war, 
the general result appeared to most men of that day to be 
consummate in conception and in development, and there- 
fore by all means to be perpetuated. In that light men of 
to-day must realize it, if they would adequately understand 
the influence exercised by this prepossession upon the 
course of events which for the United States issued in the 
War of 1812. 

In this picture, so satisfactory as a whole, there had been 
certain shadows menacing to the future. Already, in the 
colonial period, these had been recognized by some in 
Great Britain as predictive of increasing practical independ- 
ence on the part of the continental colonies, with results 
injurious to the empire at large, and to the particular 
welfare of the mother kingdom. In the last analysis, this 
danger arose from the fact that, unlike the tropical West 
Indies, these children were for the most part too like their 
parent in political and economical character, and in perma- 
nent natural surroundings. There was, indeed, a tempo- 
rary variation of activities between the new communities, 
where the superabundance of soil kept handicrafts in abey- 
ance, and the old country, where agriculture was already 
failing to produce food sufficient for the population, and 
men were being forced into manufactures and their export 
as a means of livelihood. There was also a difference in 
their respective products which ministered to beneficial 
exchange. Nevertheless, in their tendencies and in their 
disposition, Great Britain and the United States at bottom 
were then not complementary, but rivals. The true com- 
plement of both was the West Indies ; and for these the ad- 
vantage of proximity, always great, and especially so with 
regard to the special exigencies of the islands, lay with the 



56 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

United States. Hence it came to pass that the trade with 
the West Indies, which then had almost a monopoly of 
sugar and coffee production for the world, became the 
most prominent single factor in the commercial contentions 
between the two countries, and in the arbitrary commercial 
ordinances of Great Britain, which step by step led the two 
nations into war. The precedent struggle was over a 
market; artificial regulation and superior naval power 
seeking to withstand the natural course of things, and 
long successfully retarding it. 

The suspension of intercourse during the War of Inde- 
pendence had brought the economical relations into 
stronger relief, and accomplished independence threatened 
the speedy realization of their tendencies. There were two 
principal dangers dreaded by Great Britain. The West 
India plantation industry had depended upon the continen- 
tal colonies for food supplies, and to a considerable extent 
also financially ; because these alone were the consumers of 
one important product — rum. Again, ship-building and 
the carrying trade of the empire had passed largely into 
the hands of the continental colonists, keeping on that side 
of the Atlantic, it was asserted, a great number of British- 
born seamen. While vessels from America visited many 
parts of the world, the custom-house returns showed that 
of the total inward and outward tonnage of the thirteen 
colonies, over sixty per cent had been either coastwise or 
with the West Indies ; and this left out of account the 
considerable number engaged in smuggling. Of the re- 
mainder, barely twenty-five per cent went to Great Britain 
or Ireland. In short, there had been building upon the 
western side of the ocean, under the colonial connection, a 
rival maritime system, having its own products, its own 
special markets, and its own carrying trade. The latter 
also, being done by very small vessels, adapted to the short 
transit, had created for itself, or absorbed from elsewhere, 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 57 

a separate and proportionately large maritime population, 
rivalling that of the home country, while yet remaining 
out of easy reach of impressment and remote from imme- 
diate interest in European wars. One chief object of the 
Navigation Act was thus thwarted; and indeed, as might 
be anticipated from quotations already made, it was upon 
this that British watchfulness more particularly centred. 
As far as possible all interchange was to be internal to the 
empire, a kind of coasting trade, which would naturally, 
as well as by statute, fall to British shipping. Protective 
regulation therefore should develop in the several parts 
those productions which other parts needed, — the material 
of commerce ; but where this could not be done, and sup- 
plies must be sought outside, they should go and come in 
British vessels, navigated according to the Act. " Our 
country," wrote Sheffield, in concluding his work, " does 
not entirely depend upon the monopoly of the commerce 
of the thirteen American states, and it is by no means 
necessary to sacrifice any part of our carrying trade for 
imaginary advantages never to be attained." ^ 

A further injury was done by the cheapness with which 
the Americans built and sold ships, owing to their abun- 
dance of timber. They built them not only to order, 
but as it were for a market. Although acceptable to the 
mercantile interest, and even indirectly beneficial by spar- 
ing the resources for building ships of war, this was an 
invasion of the manufacturing industry of the kingdom, in 
a particular peculiarly conducive to naval power. The 
returns of the British underwriters for twenty-seven ship- 
ping ports of Great Britain and Ireland, during a series of 
years immediately preceding the American revolt, no ship 
being counted twice, showed the British-built vessels 
entered to be 3,908, and the American 2,311.2 jhe ton- 
nage of the latter was more than one-third of the total. 

1 p. 288. ^ Coxe, View of the United States, p. 346. 



58 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

The intercourse between the American continent and the 
West Indies, not included in this reckoning, was ahuost 
wholly in American bottoms. The proportion of Ameri- 
can-built shipping in the total of the empire is hence 
apparent, as well as the growth of the ship-building indus- 
try. This of course was accompanied by a tendency of 
mechanics, as well as seamen, to remove to a situation so 
favorable for employment. But the maintenance of home 
facilities for building ships was as essential to the develop- 
ment of naval power as was the fostering of a class of 
seamen. In this respect, therefore, the ship-building of 
America was detrimental to the objects of the Navigation 
Act; and the evil threatened to increase, because of a 
discernible approaching shortness of suitable timber in 
the overtaxed forests of Europe. 

Such being the apparent tendency of things, owing to 
circumstances relatively permanent in character, the habit 
of mind traditional with British merchants and statesmen, 
formed by the accepted colonial and mercantile systems, 
impelled them at once to prohibitory measures of counter- 
action, as soon as the colonies, naturally rival, had become 
by independence a foreign nation. For a moment, indeed, 
it appeared that broader views might prevail, based upon a 
sounder understanding of actual conditions and of the prin- 
ciples of international commerce. The second WiDiam Pitt 
was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time the provi- 
sional articles of peace with the United States were signed, 
in November, 1782; and in March, 1783, he introduced 
into the House of Commons a bill for regulating tempo- 
rarily the intercourse between the two nations, so far as 
dependent upon the action of Great Britain, until it should 
be possible to establish a mutual arrangement by treaty. 
This measure reflected not only a general attitude of good 
will towards America, characteristic of both father and 
son, but also the impression which had been made upon 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 59 

the younger man by the writings of Adam Smith. Pro- 
fessing as its objects " to estabhsh intercourse on the most 
enlarged principles of reciprocal benefit," and '• to evince 
the disposition of Great Britain to be on terms of most 
perfect amity with the United States of America," the 
bill admitted the ships and vessels of the United States, 
with the merchandise on board, into all the ports of 
Great Britain in the same manner as the vessels of other 
independent states ; that is, manned three-fourths by Amer- 
ican seamen. This preserved tlie main restrictions of the 
Navigation Act, protective of British navigation ; but the 
merchandise, even if brought in American ships, was 
relieved of all alien duties. These, however, wherever 
still existing for other nations, were light, and this remission 
slight ; ^ a more substantial concession was a rebate upon 
all exports from Great Britain to the United States, equal 
to that allowed upon goods exported to the colonies. As 
regarded intercourse with the West Indies, there was to 
be made in favor of the thirteen states a special and 
large remission in the rigor of the Act; one affecting 
both commerce and navigation. To British colonies, by 
long-standing proscription, no ships except British had 
been admitted to export or import. By the proposed 
measure, the United States, alone among the nations of 
the world, were to be allowed to import freely any goods 
whatsoever, of their own growth, produce, or manufac- 
ture, in their own ships ; on the same terms exactly as 
British vessels, if these should engage in the traffic be- 
tween the American continent and the islands. Simi- 
larly, freedom to export colonial produce was granted to 
American bottoms from the West Indies to the United 
States. Both exports and imports, thus to be authorized, 
were to be " liable to the same duties and charges only as 

1 Reeves, p. 381. Nevertheless, foreii^n nations frequently complained of 
this as a distiuction against them (Report of the Committee of the Privy 
Council, Jan. 28, 1791, p 10). 



60 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the same merchandise would be subject to, if it were the 
property of British native-born subjects, and imported in 
British ships, navigated by British seamen." ^ In short, 
while the primary purpose doubtless was the benefit of the 
islands, the effect of the measure, as regarded the West 
India trade, was to restore the citizens of the now indepen- 
dent states to the piivileges they had enjoyed as colonists. 
The carrying trade between the islands and the continent 
was conceded to them, and past experience gave ground 
to believe it would be by them absorbed. 

It was over this concession that the storm of controversy 
arose and raged, until the outbreak of the French Revolu- 
tion, by the conservative reaction it provoked in other 
governments, arrested for the time any change of principle 
in regard to colonial administration, whatever modifica- 
tions might from time to time be induced by momentary 
exigencies of policy. The question immediately argued 
was probably on all hands less one of principle than of 
expediency. Superior as commercial prosperity and the 
preservation of peace were to most other motives in the 
interest of Pitt's mind, he doubtless would have admitted, 
along with his most earnest opponents, that the fostering 
of the national carrying trade, as a nursery to the navy and 
so contributory to national defence, took precedence of 
purely commercial legislation. With all good-will to 
America, his prime object necessarily was the welfare of 
Great Britain ; but this he, contrary to the mass of public 
opinion, conceived to lie in the restoration of the old 
intercourse between the two peoples, modified as little as 
possible by the new condition of independence. He trusted 
that the habit of receiving everything from England, the 
superiority of British manufactures, a common tongue, and 
commercial correspondences only temporaril}^ interrupted 
by the war, would tend to keep the new states customers 

1 Bryau Edwards, West Indies, vol. ii. p. 494 (note). 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 61 

of Great Britain chiefly, as they had been before ; and what 
they bouglit they must pay for by sending their own 
products in return. This constraint of routine and con- 
venience received additional force from the scarcity of 
capital in America, and its abundance in Great Britain, 
relatively' to the rest of Europe. The wealthiest nation 
could hold tlie Americans by their need of accommo- 
dations wliicli others could not extend. 

In so far there probably was a general substantial agree- 
ment in Great Britain. The Americans had been con- 
sumers to over double the amount of the West Indies 
before the war, and it was desirable to retain their custom. 
Nor was the anticipation of success deceived. Nine years 
later, despite the rejection of Pitt's measure, an experienced 
American complained " that we draw so large a proportion 
of our manufactures from one nation. The other European 
nations have had the eight years of the war (of Independ- 
ence) exclusively, and the nine years of peace in fair com- 
petition, and do not yet supply us with manufactures 
equivalent to half of the stated value of the shoes made 
by ourselves." ^ In the first year of the government under 
the Constitution, from August, 1789, to September 30, 
1790, after seven years of independence, out of a total of 
not quite $20,000,000 imports to the United States, over 
$15,000,000 were from the dominions of Great Britain;^ 
and nearly half the exports went to the same destination, 
either as raw material for manufactures, or as to the dis- 
tributing centre for Europe. The commercial dependence 
is evident; it had rather increased than diminished since 
the Peace. As regards American navigation, the showing 

1 Coxe's View, p. 318. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. i. p. 301. Jefferson added, 
" These imports consist mostly of articles on wliich industry has been ex- 
hausted,' — i. e., completed manufactures. The State Papers, Commerce and 
Navigation, give the tabulated imports and exports for many succeeding 
years. 



62 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

wa.s somewhat better; but even here 217,000 tons British 
had entered United States ports, against a total of only 
355,000 American. As of the latter only 50,000 had sailed 
from Great Brifciin, it is clear that the empire had retained 
its hold upon its carrying trade, thronghout the years 
intervening between the Peace and the adoption of the 
Constitution. 

As reo-ai-ds the commercial relations between the two 
nations, these results corresponded in the main with the 
expectations of those who frustrated Pitt's measure. He 
had conceived, however, that it was wise for Great Britain 
not only to preserve a connection so profitable, but also 
to develop it ; to multiply the advantage by steps which 
would promote the prosperity and consequent purchasing 
power of the communities involved. This was the object 
of his proposed concession. During the then recent war, 
no part of the British dominions — save besieged Gib- 
raltar — had suffered so severely as the West Indies. 
Though other causes concun-ed, this was due chiefly to 
the cessation of communications with the revolted colo- 
nies, entailing failure of supplies indispensable to their 
industries. Despite certain alleviations incidental to the 
war, such as the capture of American vessels bound to 
foreign islands, and the demand for tropical products by 
the British armies and fleets, there had been great misery 
among the population, as well as financial loss. The res- 
toration of commercial intercourse would benefit the con- 
tinent as well as the islands ; but the latter more. The 
prosperity of both would redound to the welfare of Great 
Britain ; for the one, though now politically independent, 
was chained to her commercial system by imperative cir- 
cumstances, while of the trade of the other she would have 
complete monopoly, except for this tolerance of a strictly 
local traffic with the adjoining continent. As for British 
navigation, the supreme interest, Pitt believed that it 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 03 

would receive more enlargement from the increase of pro- 
ductiveness in the islands, and of consequent demand for 
British manufactures, than it would suffer loss by Ameri- 
can navigation. More commerce, more ships. Then, as v 
at the present day, the interests of Great Britain and of 
the United States, in their relations to a matter of common 
external concern, were not opposed, but complementary ; 
for the prosperity of the islands through America would 
make for the prosperity of Great Britain through the 
islands. 

This, however, was just the point disputed ; and, in de- 
fault of the experience which the coming years were to fur- 
nish, fears not wholly unreasonable, from the particular 
point of view of sea power, as then understood, were 
aroused by the known facts of American shipping enter- 
prise, both as ship-builders and carriers, even under colo- 
nial trammels. John Adams, who was minister to Great 
Britain from 1785 to 1788, had frequent cause to note the 
deep and general apprehension there entertained of the 
United States as a rival maritime state. The question of 
admission to the colonial trade, as it presented itself to most 
men of the day, was one of defence and of offence, and was 
complicated by several considerations. As a matter of fact, 
there was no denying the existence of that transatlantic 
commercial system, in which the former colonies had been 
so conspicuous a factor, the sole source of certain supplies 
to an important market, reflecting therein exactly Great 
Britain's own position relatively to the consumers of the 
European continent. The prospect of reviving what had al- 
ways been an imperium in imperio, but now uncontrolled by 
the previous conditions of political subjection, seemed omi- 
nous ; and besides, there was cherished the hope, ill-founded 
and delusive though it was, that the integrity of the em- 
pire as a self-sufficing whole, broken by recent revolt, might 
be restored by strong measures, coercive towards the com- 



54 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

merce of the United States, and protective towards Canada 
and the other remaining continental colonies. It was be- 
lieved by some that the agriculture, shipping, and fisheries 
of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, despite the ob- 
stacles placed by nature, could be so fostered as to supply 
the needs of the West Indies, and to develop also a popu- 
lation of consumers bound to take off British manufactures, 
as the lost colonists used to do. This may be styled the 
constructive idea, in Sheffield's series of propositions, look- 
ing to the maintenance of the British carrying trade at the 
expense of that of the United States. This expectation 
proved erroneous. Up to and through the War of 1812, 
the British provinces, so far from having a surplus for ex- 
port, had often to depend upon the United States for much 
of the supplies which Sheffield expected them to send to 
the West Indies. 

The proposition was strongly supported also by a ^vish 
to aid the American loyalists, who, to the number of many 
thousands, had fled 'from the old colonies to take refuge in 
the less hospitable North. These men, deprived of their 
former resources, and having a new start in life to make, 
desired that the West India market should be reserved for 
them, to build up their local industries. Their influence was 
exerted in opposition to the planters, and the mother coun- 
try justly felt itself bound to their relief by strong obliga- 
tion. Conjoined to this was doubtless the less worthy desire 
to punish the successful rebellion, as well as to hinder the 
growth of a competitor. " If I had not been here and 
resided here some time," wrote John Adams, in 1785, " I 
should not have believed, nor could have conceived, such 
an union of all Parliamentary factions against us, which 
is a demonstration of the unpopularity of our cause." ^ 
" Their direct object is not so much the increase of their 
own wealth, ships, or sailors, as the diminution of ours. 

1 Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 333. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY G5 

A jealousy of our naval power is the true motive, the real 
passion which actuates them. They consider the United 
States as their rival, and the most dangerous rival tiiey 
have in the world. I can see clearly they are less afraid 
of the augmentation of French ships and sailors than 
American. They think they foresee that if the United 
States had the same fisheries, carrying trade, and same 
market for ready-built ships, they had ten years ago, they 
would be in so respectable a position, and in so happy 
circumstances, that British seamen, manufacturers, and 
merchants too, would hurry over to them." ^ These state- 
ments, drawn from Adams's association with many men, 
reflect so exactly the line of argument in the best known 
of the many controversial pamphlets published about that 
time, — Lord Sheflield's '-' Observations on the Commerce 
of the American States,"' — as to prove that it represented 
correctly a preponderant popular feeling, not only adverse 
to the restoration of the colonial privileges contemplated 
by Pitt, but distinctly inimical to the new nation ; a feel- 
ing born of past defeat and of present apprehension. 

Inextricably associated with this feeling was the convic- 
tion that the navigation supported by the sugar islands, 
being a monopoly always under the control of the mother 
country, and ministering to the entrepot on which so much 
other shipping depended, was the one sure support of 
the general carrying trade of the nation. " Considering 
the bulk of West India commodities,'' Sheffield had written, 
" and the universality and extent of the consumption of 
sugar, a consumption still in its infancy even in Europe, 
and still more in America, it is not improbable that in a 
few ages the nation which may be in possession of the 
most extensive and best cultivated sugar islands, subject to 
a jjroper polict/,^ will take the lead at sea." Men of all 
schools concurred in this general view, which is explanatory 

1 Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 291. - My italics. 

\(>L. I. — 5 



QQ ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

of much of tlie course pursued by the British Government, 
ahke in military enterprise, commercial regulation, and 
political belligerent measures, during the approaching 
twenty years of war with France. It underlay Pitt's sub- 
sequent much derided, but far from unwise, care to get 
the whole West India region under British control, by 
conquering its sugar islands. It underlay also the other 
measures, either instituted or countenanced by him, or 
inherited from his general war policy, which led through 
ever increasing exasperation to the war with the United 
States. The question, however, remained, " What is the 
proper policy conducive to the end which all desire ? " 
Those who thought with Pitt in 1783 urged that to increase 
the facilities of the islands, by abundant supplies from the 
nearest and best source, in America, would so multiply the 
material of commerce as most to promote the necessary 
navigation. The West India planters pressed this view 
Avith forcible logic. " Navigation and naval power are not 
the parents of commerce, but its happy fruits. If mutual 
wants did not furnish the subject of intercourse between 
distant countries, there would soon be an end of naviga- 
tion. The carrying trade is of great importance, but it is 
of greater still to have trade to carry." To this the reply 
substantially was that if the trade were thrown open to 
Americans, by allowing them to carry in their own vessels, 
the impetus so given to their navigation, with the cheap- 
ness of their ships, owing to the cheapness of materials, 
would make them carriers to the whole world, breaking up 
the monopoly of British merchants, and supplanting the 
employment of British ships. 

A few statesmen, more far seeing and deeper reasoning, 
— notably Edmund Burke, — came to Pitt's support, and 
the West India proprietors, largely resident in England, 
by their knowledge of details contributed much to elucidate 
the facts; but their efforts were unavailino-. Their arcni- 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 67 

ment ran thus : " Only the American continent can furnish 
at reasonable rates the animals required for the agriculture 
of the islands, the food for the slaves, the lumber for build- 
ings and for packing produce. Only the continent will 
take the rum which Europe refuses, and with which the 
planter pays his running expenses. Owing to irreversible 
currents of trade, neither British nor island sliipping can 
carry this traffic at a profit to themselves, except by ruin- 
ously overcharging the planter. Americans only can do 
it. Concede the exchange by this means, and the develop- 
ment of sugar and coffee raising, owing to their bulk as 
freight, will enlarge British shipping to Europe by an 
amount much beyond that lost in the local transport. Of 
the European carriage you will retain a monopoly, as 
you will of the produce, which goes into your storehouses 
alone ; whence you reap the advantage of brokerage and 
incidental handling, at the expense of the continental 
consumer, while your home navigation is enlarged by 
its export. Refuse this privilege, and your islands sink 
under French and Spanish competition. French Santo 
Domingo, especially, exceeds by far all your possessions, 
both in the extent of soil and quality of product." Very 
shortly they were able also to say that the French al- 
lowed ships to be bought from Americans ; and, altliough 
in their treaty with the United States they had refused free 
intercourse to American vessels, a royal ordinance of 1784 
permitted it to vessels of under sixty tons' burden. 

Within a month of the introduction of Pitt's bill the 
ministry to which he then belonged fell. The one which 
followed refrained from dealing at all with the subject, 
except by recourse to an expedient not uncommon with 
party leaders, dealing with a new question of admitted 
intricacy. They passed a bill leaving the whole matter to 
the Crown for executive action. Accordingly, in July, 
1783, a proclamation was issued permitting intercourse 



68 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

between the islands and the American continent, in a long- 
list of specified articles, but only by British ships, owned 
and navigated as required by the Navigation Act. Ameri- 
can vessels w^ere excluded by omission, and while most 
necessaries for food, agriculture, and commerce were ad- 
mitted, one staple article, salt fish, urgently requested by 
the planters, was forbidden. This was partly to encourage 
the Newfoundland fisheries and those of Great Britain, 
and partly to injure American. Both objects were in the 
line of the Navigation Act, to foster home navigation and 
impede that of foreigners; fisheries being considered a 
prime support of each. A generation before, the elder 
Pitt had inveighed against the Peace of Paris, in 1763, 
on account of the concession of the cod fisheries. " You 
leave to France," he said, " the opportunity of reviving her 
navy."' Before the separation, the near and great market 
of the West India negro population had consumed one-third 
of the American catch of fish. So profitable a condition 
could no longer be continued. Salt provisions also, butter, 
and cheese, were not allowed, being reserved for Irish 
producers.^ 

The next December the enabling bill was renewed and 
the proclamation re-issued. At this moment Pitt returned 
to office. A few months later, in the spring of 1784, 
Parliament was dissolved, and the ensuing elections carried 
him into power at the head of a great majority. He made 
no immediate attempt to resume legislation favoring the 
American trade with the West Indies. The disposition 
of the majority of Englishmen in the matter had been 
plainly shown, and other more urgent commercial reforms 
engaged his attention. Soon after the receipt of the news 
in America, some of the states passed retaliatory measures, 
on their own account, or authorized the Continental Con- 
gress so to act for them. The bad feeling already caused 

1 Chalmers, Opinions, p. 65. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 69 

by the non-fulfilment, on both sides, of certain stipulations 
of the treaty of peace was particularly exasperated by this 
proclamation ; for anticipation, aroused by Pitt's proposed 
measure, had been nursed into confident expectation during 
the four months' interval, in which intercourse had been 
openly or tacitly allowed. It was at this period that Nelson 
first came cons]3icuously into public notice, by checking 
the connivance of the West Indian governors in the infrac- 
tions of the Navigation Laws ; the Act authorizing com- 
manders of Kings' ships to seize offending vessels, and 
bring them before the Court of Admiralty.^ It is said 
also that his experience had much to do with shaping sub- 
sequent legislation upon the same prohibitory lines. In 
America disappointment was bitter. Little concern was 
felt in England. Concerted action by several states was 
thought most unlikely, and a more perfect union impossible. 
While Massachusetts, for example, in 1785 forbade import 
or export in any vessel belonging in whole or in part to 
British subjects, the state then next to her in maritime 
importance, Pennsylvania, in 1786 repealed laws imposing 
extra charges on British ships, and admitted all nations on 
equal terms with her sister states. "The ministry in 
England," wrote Adams, " build all their hopes and schemes 
upon the supposition of such divisions in America as will 
forever prevent a combination of the States, either in prohi- 
bition or in retaliatory duties." ^ 

Effective retaliation consequenil}'- was not feared, and 
as for results otherwise, it was doubtless thought best to 
await the test of experience. Proclamation, annually au- 
thorized and re-issued, remained therefore the mode of 
reofulating; commerce between the British dominions and 
the United States up to the date of Jay's treaty. Once 
only, in 1788, Parliament interfered so far as to pass a 
law, confining the trade with the West Indies to British- 

1 Reeves, pp. 47, 57. - Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 281. 



70 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

built ships and to certain enumerated articles, in the 
strict spirit of the Navigation system. Otherwise, inter- 
course with the United States was throughout this period 
subject at any moment to be modified or annulled by the 
sino-le will of the Executive ; whereas that with other 
nations, fixed by statute,— the Navigation Act, — could be 
altered only by the legislature.^ 

Of this British commercial pohcy, following immediately 
upon the recognition of independence, Americans had 
not the slightest reason to complain. They had insisted 
upon being independent, and it would be babyish to fret 
about the consequences, when unpalatable. It was un- 
pleasant to find that Great Britain, satisfied that the 
carrying trade was the first of her interests, upon which 
depended her naval supremacy, rigorously excluded Ameri- 
cans from branches of that trade before permitted to them ; 
but in so doing she was simply seeking her own advantage 
by means of her own laws, as a nation does, for instance, 
when it imposes heavy protective duties. It is quite as 
legitimate to protect the carrying trade as any other form 
of industry ; and the Navigation Act was no new device, 
for the special annoyance of Americans. It is very possible 
that the action of Great Britain at this time was so stupid, 
that, to use words of Jefferson's, the only way to prophesy 
what she would do was to ascertain what she ought to do, 
and infer the contrary. The rule, he said, never failed. 
This particular stupidity, if such it were, — and there 
was at least partial ground for the charge, — was simply 
another case of a most common form of human dulness 
of perception, preoccupation with a fixed idea. But were 
the policy wise or foolish, as regards herself, towards the 
Americans it was not a wrong, but an injury ; and, conse- 
quently, what the newly independent people had to do 
was not to complain, but to strike back with retaliatory 

1 American State Papers, Foreigu Kclatious, vol. i. p. 307. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 71 

commercial measures. Jefferson, no friend generally to 
coercive action, wrote concerning this particular situation, 
" It is not to the moderation or justice of others we are to 
trust for fair and equal access to market with our produc- 
tions, or for our due share in the transportation of them ; 
but to our own means of independence, and the firm will 
to use them." ^ 

Equally, when Great Britain, under the emergencies of 
the French Revolution, resorted to measures that over- 
passed her rights, either municipal or international, and 
infringed our own, the resort should have been to the 
remedy with which nations defend their rights, as distinct 
from their interest. The American people, then poor, and 
habituated to colonial dependence, failed to create for them- 
selves in due time the power necessary to self-assertion ; 
nor did they as a nation realize, what men like John 
Adams and Gouverneur Morris saw and preached, that in 
the complicated tangle of warring interests which consti- 
tutes every contemporary situation, the influence of any 
single factor depends, not merely upon its own value, but 
upon that value taken in connection with other conditions. 
A pound is but a pound ; but when the balance is nearly 
equal, a pound may turn a scale. Because America could 
not possibly put afloat the hundred — or two hundred — 
ships-of-the-line which Great Britain had in commission, 
therefore, many argued, as many do to-day, it was vain 
to have any navy. " I believe," wrote Morris in 1794,^ 
and few men better understood financial conditions, " that 
we could now maintain twelve ships-of-the-line, perhaps 
twenty, with a due proportion of frigates and smaller 
vessels. And I am tolerabl}' certain that, while the 
United States of America pursue a just and liberal con- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. p. 304. 
- Morris to Randolph (Secretary of State), May 31, 1794. American State 
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. 1. p. 409. The italics are Morris's. 



72 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

duct, with twenty sail-of-the-line at sea, no nation on earth 
will dare to insult them. I believe also, that, not to men- 
tion individual losses, five years of war would involve 
more national expense than the support of a navy for 
twenty years. One thing I am thoroughly convinced of, 
that, if we do not render ourselves respectable, we shall 
continue to be insulted." 

A singular, and too much disregarded, instance of the 
insults to which the United States was exposed, by the 
absence of naval strength, is found in the action of the Bar- 
bary Powers towards our commerce, which scarcely dared 
to enter the Mediterranean. It is less known that this 
condition of things was eminently satisfactory to British 
politicians of the old-fashioned school, and as closely linked 
as was the Navigation system itself to the ancient rivalry 
with Holland. "Our ships," wrote the Dutch statesman 
De Witt, who died in 1672, " should be well guarded by 
convoy against the Barbary pirates. Yet it would by no 
means be proper to free that sea of those pirates, because 
we should hereby be put upon the same footing with East- 
landers, [^. e., Baltic nations, Denmark, Sweden, etc.] 
English, Spaniards, and Italians ; wherefore it is best to 
leave that thorn in the sides of those nations, whereby they 
will be distressed in that trade, while we by convoy engross 
all the European traffic and navigation." ^ This cynical 
philosophy was echoed in 1784 by the cultured English 
statesman, Lord Sheffield, the intimate friend of the his- 
torian Gibbon, and editor of his memoirs. " If the great 
maritime powers know their interests," he wrote, "they 
will not encourage the Americans to be carriers. That the 
Barbary States are an advantage to the maritime powers is 
obvious. If they were suppressed, the little states of 
Italy, etc., would have much more of the carrying trade. 

1 Quoted from De Witt's Interest of Holland, in Macpherson's Annals of 
Commerce, vol. ii. p. 472. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 73 

The Armed Neutrality would be as hurtful to the great 
maritime powers as the Barbary States are useful," ^ 

It may be a novel thought to many Americans, that at 
that time American commerce in the Mediterranean de- 
pended largely for protection upon Portuguese cruisers ; 
its own country extending none. When peace was unex- 
pectedly made between Portugal and Algiers in 1793, 
through the interposition of a British consular officer, 
a wail of dismay went up to heaven from American 
shipmen. " The conduct of the British in this business," 
wrote the American consul at Lisbon, "leaves no room 
to doubt or mistake their object, which was evidently 
aimed at us, and that they will leave nothing unat- 
tempted to effect our ruin." It proved, indeed, that the 
British consul's action was not that of his Government, but 
taken on his own initiative ; but the incident not only 
recalls the ideas of tbe time, long since forgotten, but in 
its indications, both of British commercial security and 
American exposure, illustrates the theory of the Navigation 
Act as to the reciprocal influence of the naval and merchant 
services. There was then nothing, in tlie economical con- 
ditions of the United States, to forbid a navy stronger 
than the Portuguese ; yet the consul, in his pitiful appeal 
to the Portuguese Court, had to write : " J\Iy countrymen 
have been led into tlieir present embarrassment by confid- 
ing in the friendship, power, and protection of her INIost 
Faithful Majesty," . . . wliich " lulled our citizens into a 
fatal security. "2 Our lamentable dependence upon others, 
for the respect we should have extorted ourselves, is shown 
in the instructions issued to Jay, on his mission to Enghind 
in 1794. " It may be represented to the British Ministry, 
how productive of perfect conciliation it might be to the 

1 Observations on the Commerce of the American States, 1783, p. 115 
Concerning this pamphlet, Gibbon wrote, " The Navigation Act, the palladium 
of Britain, was defended, perhaps saved, by his pen." 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. pp. 296-290. 



74 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

I)eople of the United States, if Great Britain would use her 
influence with the Dey of Algiers for the liberation of the 
American citizens in captivity, and for a peace upon rea- 
sonable terms. It has been communicated from abroad, to 
be the fixed policy of Great Britain to check our trade in 
grain to the Mediterranean. This is too doubtful to be 
assumed, but fit for inquiry." i The Dey had declared 
war in 1785, this being with the Barbary rulers the cus- 
tomary method of opening piratical action. " If the Dey 
makes peace with every one," said one of his captains to 
Nelson, " what is he to do Avith his ships ? " 

The experience of the succeeding fifteen years was to 
give ample demonstration of the truth of Morris's proph- 
ecy; but what is interesting now to observe is, that he, 
who certainly did not imagine twenty ships to be equal 
to a hundred, accurately estimated the deterrent force of 
such a body, prepared to act upon an enemy's communica- 
tions, — or interests, — at a great distance from the strate- 
gic centre of operations. A valuable military lesson of the 
War of 1812 is just this : that a comparatively small force 
— a few frigates and sloops — placed as the Ignited States 
Navy was, can exercise an influence utterly dispropor- 
tionate to its own strength. Instances of Great Britain's 
extremity, subsequent to Morris's prediction, are easily 
cited. In 1796, her fleet was forced to abandon the ]\ledi- 
terranean. In 1799, a year after the Nile, Nelson had to 
implore a small Portuguese division not to relinquish the 
blockade of Malta, which he could not otherwise main- 
tain. Under such conditions, apprehension of even a slight 
additional burden of hostility imposes restraint. Had 
Morris's navy existed in 1800, we probably should have 
had no War of 1812 ; that is, if Jefferson's passion for 
peace, and abhorrence of navies, could have been left 
out of the account. War, as Napoleon said, is a busi- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. p. 474. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 75 

ness of positions. The commercial importance of the 
United States, and the position of its navy relatively to 
the major interests of Great Biitain, would together liave 
produced an effect, to which, under the political emer- 
gency of the time, the mere commercial retaliation then 
attempted was quite inadequate. This distressed the 
enemy, but did not reduce him ; and it bitterly alienated 
a large part of our own community, so that we went into 
the war a discordant, almost a disunited, nation. 

During the years of American impotence under tlie 
early confederation, the trade regulations of the British 
Government, framed on the lines advocated by Lord Shef- 
field, met with a measure of success which was perhaps 
more apparent than real ; due attention being scarcely 
paid to the actual loss entailed upon British planters 
by the heightened cost of supplies, and the consequent 
effect upon British commerce and navigation. "Under 
the present limited intercourse with America," wrote the 
planter, Edwards, " the West Indies are subject to three 
sets of devouring monopolies : 1, the British ship-owners; 
2, their agents in American ports ; 3, their agents in the 
ports of tlie islands ; all of whom exact an unnatural 
profit of the planters." ^ Chalmers, looking only to the 
navigation of the kingdom, which these cul[)rits repre- 
sented, admits tliat in tlie principal supplies Great Britain 
cannot compete with America ; but, " wliatever may be the 
difference in price to the West Indians, this is but a small 
equivalent which they ought to pay to the British con- 
sumer, for enjoying the exclusive supply of sugar, rum, 
and other West India products."^ A few figures show 
conclusively that under all disadvantages the islands in- 
creased in actual prosperity, although they fell behind 
their French competitors, favored by a more liberal policy. 
In the quiet year 1770, before the revolt of the continent, 

1 West Indies, vol. ii. page 522, note. - Opinions, p. 89. 



76 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the British West Indies shipj^ed to the liome country- 
produce amounting to £3,279,204 ;i in 1787 this had risen 
to £4,839,145,^ a gain of over 80 per cent. Between the 
same years, exports to the United States, limited after 
the peace to British ships, had fallen from £481,407 to 
£196,461. American produce, confined to British bottoms 
for admission to British colonies, had gone largely to the 
French islands, with which before the Revolution they 
could have only surreptitious intercourse. The result 
was that the British planter liad to pay much more for 
his plantation supplies than did the French, wlio were 
furnished by American vessels, Ijuilt and run much 
cheaper than British.^ He was rigidly forbidden also 
to seek stores in the French islands. Such circuitous 
intercourse with America, by depriving British ships of 
the long voyage to the continent, would place the French 
islands in the obnoxious relation of entrepot to their 
neighbors, which Holland had once occupied towards Eng- 
land. In all legislation minute care was taken to prevent 
such injury to navigation. Direct trade with British 
dominions was the fetich of British policy ; circuitous trade 
its abomination. 

Despite drawbacks, a distinct advance was observable 
also in British navigation ; in the development of the 
British- American colonies, continental and island ; and in 
the intercolonial intercourse and shipping. Immediately 
after the institution of the new government, the United 
States enacted laws protective of her own navigation; 
notably by an alien dut}^ laid upon all foreign tonnage. 

1 Macplierson, vol. iii. p. 506. 2 IbiJ.^ vol. iv. ]>. 158. 

^ Bryan Edwards, liiinself a planter of the time, says (vol. ii. j). 522) tliat 
staves and lumber had risen .37 per cent in the Britisli islands, which he at- 
tributes to the extortions of the navigation monopoly, " under the present 
limited intercourse with America." Coxe (View, etc., p. 134) gives lists 
of comparative prices, in 1790, June to November, in the neighboring islands 
of Santo Domingo and Jamaica, which show forcibly the burdens under 
which the latter labored. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 77 

To consider the probable effects of this legishition, and of 
the new American institutions, upon British commerce and 
navigation, a committee of the Privy Council was appointed, 
to which we owe a digested and authoritative summary of 
the change of conditions effected by the British measures, 
between 1783 and 1790. From its report, based upon 
averages of several years, it appears that in the direct 
trade between Great Britain and the United States, in 
which American ships stood on equal terms with British, 
there had been little variation in value of imports or 
exports, with the single exception of tobacco and rice. 
These two articles, which formerly had to pass through 
Great Britain as an entrepot, now went direct to their 
destination. The American shipping — navigation — em- 
ployed in the trade with Great Britain herself, was only 
one-third of the British; the respective tonnage being 
26,56-4 and 52,595. As this was nearly the proportion of 
American to British built ships in the colonial period, 
American shipping before the adoption of the Constitution 
had not gained at all, under the most favorable treatment 
conceded to it in British dominions. The Report, indeed, 
estimated that it had lost by nearly 20 per cent.^ 

In the colonial trade, on the other hand, very marked 
British gains could be reported. The commercially back- 
ward communities of Canada, etc., forbidden now to admit 
American ships, or to import many articles from the 
United States, and given special privileges in the West 
Indies, had more than doubled their imports from the 
mother country; the amount rising from £379,411 to 
£829,088. These sums are not to be regarded in their 
own triviality, but as harbingers of a development, which 
it was hoped would fill the void in the British imperial 

1 Chalmers, in oue of his works quoted by Macpherson (vol. iii. p. 55!) ), 
estimates the annual entries of American-built ships to British ports, 1771-74, 
to be 34,587 tons. From this figure the falling off was marked. 



78 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

system caused by the loss of the former colonies. The 
West Indies showed a more gradual increase, though still 
satisfactory; their exports since 1774 had risen 20 per 
cent. 'It was, however, in navigation, avowedly the chief 
aim of the protective legislation, that the intercolonial 
results were most encouraging. Through the exclusion of 
American competition, British tonnage to Canada and the 
neio-hboring colonies had enlarged fourfold, from 11,219 to 
46,106. The national tonnage engaged between the West 
Indies and the mother country had grown from 80,482 to 
133,736; 60 per cent. More encouraging still, from tlie 
ideal point of view of a restored system of mutual support, 
embracing both sides of the Atlantic, the tonnage employed 
between Canada and the West Indies had risen from 996 
only in 1774, to 14,513 in 1789. In brief, after a careful 
and systematic examination of the whole field, the com- 
mittee considered that British navigation had gained 
111,638 tons by excluding Americans from branches of 
trade they had once shared, and still eagerly desired. 

The effects of the system were most conspicuous in the 
trade between the West Indies and the United States. 
The tonnage here employed had fallen from 107,739, be- 
fore the war, to 62,738. The reflections of the Committee 
upon this particular are so characteristic of national con- 
victions as to be worth quoting. ^ " This decrease is rather 
less than half what it was before the war ; ^ but before the 
war five-eighths belonged to merchants, permanent inhab- 
itants of the countries now under the dominion of the 
United States, and three-eighths to British merchants re- 
siding occasionally in the said countries. At that time, 
very few vessels belonging to British merchants, resi- 
dent in the British European dominions, or in the British 

1 Keport of the Committee of the Privy Council, Jan. 28, 1791, p. 39. 

2 This awkward expression means that the amount of decrease was rather 
less than half the before-the-war total. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 79 

Islands in the West Indies, had a share in this trade. 
The vessels employed in this trade can now only belong to 
British subjects residing in the present British dominions. 
Many vessels now go from the ports of Great Britain, 
carrying British manufactures to the United States, there 
load with lumber and provisions for t;ie Biitish Islands 
in the West Indies, and return with the produce of these 
islands to Great Britain. The whole of this branch of 
freight may also be considered as a new acquisition, and 
was obtained by your Majesty's Order in Council before 
mentioned,^ which has operated to the increase of British 
Navigation, compared to that of the United States in a 
double ratio ; hut it has taken from the navigation of the 
United States more than it has added to that of Grreat 
Britain.'''' 

The last sentence emphasizes the fact, which John 
Adams had noted, that the object of the Navigation sys- 
tem was scarcely more defensive than offensive, in the 
military sense of the word. The Act carried provisions 
meant distinctly to impede the development of foreign 
shipping, as far as possible to do so by municipal regula- 
tion. The prohibition of entrance to a j^ort of Great 
Britain by a foreign trader, unless three-fourths manned 
by citizens of the country whose flag she bore, was dis- 
tinctly offensive in intent. But for this, other states might 
increase their tonnage by employing seamen not their own, 
which Great Britain could not do without weakening the 
reserves available for her navy, and imperative to her de- 
fence. Eivalry was thus engendered, and became bitter 
and apprehensive in proportion to the national interests 
involved ; but at no time had such considerations per- 
suaded the country to depart from its purpose. " The for- 
eign war which those measures first brought upon us, and 

1 June 18, 1784, substantially the re-issue of that of Dec. 26, 1783, which 
Eeeves (p. 288j considers the standard exemplar. 



80 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the odium which they have never ceased to cause, to the 
present day (1792) among neighboring nations, have not 
induced the legislature to give up any one of its princi- 
ples.*' ^ In the case of the United States, the exasperation 
aroused was very great. It perpetuated the national ani- 
mosity surviving from the War of Independence, and 
provoked retaliation. Before the formation of the better 
Union this was too desultory and divided to have much 
effect, and the artificial system of which Sheffield was 
the chief public champion had the appearance of success 
which has been described; but as soon as the thirteen 
states could wield their power as one whole, under a system 
at once consistent and permanent, American navigation 
began to make rapid headway. In 1790 there entered 
American ports from abi'oad 355,000 tons of American 
shipping and 251,000 foreign, of which 217,000 were Brit- 
ish.^ After one year of the discriminating tonnage dues 
laid by the national Congress, the American tonnage enter- 
ing home ports from Great Britain had risen, from the 
26,564 average of the three years, 1787 to 1789, ascer- 
tained by the British committee, to 43,580.^ In 1801 
there entered 799,304 tons of native shipping,"* and but 
138,000 foreign.^ The amount of British among the latter 
is not stated ; but in the year 1800 there cleared from 
Great Britain, under her own flag, for the United States, 
but 14,381 tons.^ This reversal of the conditions in 1787- 
89, before quoted," was the result of a gradual progress, 
noticeable immediately after the American imposition of 
tonnage duties, and increasing up to 1793, when it was ac- 
celerated by the war between Great Britain and France. 

1 Reeves, p. 4.31. 

- American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, vol. x. p. 389. 

3 Ibid., Foreign Relations, vol. i. p. 301. 

* Ibid., Commerce and Navigation, vol. x. p. 528. 

5 Ibid., p. 584. 

*• Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. p. 535. 

^ Ante, pp. 77, 78. 



FRO^^ INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 81 

It is carefully to be remembered that the British com- 
mittee, representing strictly the prepossessions of the body 
by which it was constituted, looked primarily to the devel- 
opment of national carrying trade. " As the security of the 
British dominions principally depends on the greatness of 
your Majesty's naval power, it has ever been the policy of 
the British Government to watch with a jealous eye every 
attempt that has been made by foreign nations to the detri- 
ment of its navigation ; and even in cases where the in- 
terests of commerce and those of navigation could not be 
wholly reconciled, the Government of Great Britain has 
always given the preference to the interests of navigation ; 
and it has never yet submitted to the imposition of any 
tonnage duties by foreign nations on British ships trading 
to their ports, without proceeding immediately to retalia- 
tion/' ^ It had, however, submitted to several such meas- 
ures, retaliatory for the exclusion from the West India 
triide, enacted by the separate states in the years 1783 
to 1789 ; as well as to other legislation, taxing British 
shipping by name much above that of other foreigners. 
This quiescence was due to confidence, that the advan- 
tages possessed by Great Britain would enable her to over- 
come all handicaps. It was therefore with satisfaction that, 
after six years of commercial antagonism, the committee 
was able, not only to report the growth of British shipping, 
already quoted, but to show by the first official statement 
of entries issued by the American Government,^ for the 
first year of its own existence, that for every five American 
tons entering American ports from over sea, there entered 
also three British; and that of the whole foreign ton- 
nage there were six British to one of all other nations 
together. 

Upon the whole, therefore, while regretting the evidence 
in the American statement which showed increasing activ- 

1 Keport of the Committee, p. 85. ^ Ibid., p. 52. 

VOL. I. — 6 



82 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

ity by American shipping over that ascertained by them- 
selves for the previous years, — to be accounted for, as was 
believed, by transient circumstances, — the committee, after 
consultation with the leading merchants in the American 
trade, thought better to postpone retaliation for the new 
tonnage duties, which contained no invidious distinction in 
favor of other foreign shipping against British. The sys- 
tem of trade regulation so far pursued had given good 
results, and its continuance was recommended; though 
bitterly antagonizing Americans, and maintaining ill-will 
between the two countries. Upon one point, especially 
desired by the United States, the committee was particu- 
larly firm. It considered that its Government might judi- 
ciously make one proposition — and one only — for a 
commercial treaty ; namely, that there should be entire 
equality of treatment, as to duties and tonnage, towards 
the ships of both nations in the home ports of each other. 
" But if Congress should propose (as they certainly will) 
that this principle of equality should be extended to the 
ports of our Colonies and Islands, and that the ships of 
the United States should there be treated as British ships, 
it should be answered that this demand cannot be admitted 
even as a subject of negotiation. . . . This branch of 
freight is of the same nature with the freight from one 
American state to another " (that is, trade internal to the 
empire is essentially a coasting trade). " Congress has 
made regulations to confine the freight, employed between 
the different states, to the ships of tlie United States, a7id 
Great Britain does not object to this restriction." ^ " The 
great advantages which have resulted from excluding 
American ships appear in the accounts given in this re- 
port; many of the merchants and planters of tlie "West 
Indies, who formerly resisted this advice, now acknowledge 
the wisdom of it."^ 

1 Report, p. 96. 2 n,;,].^ p, 94. 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY 83 

The committee recognized that exclusion from the carry- 
ing trade of the British West Indies was in some degree 
compensated to the American carrier, by the permission 
given by the Government of France for vessels not exceed- 
ing sixty tons to trade with her colonies, actually much 
greater producers, and therefore larger customers. Santo 
Domingo in particular, in the period following the Amer- 
ican war, had enjoyed a heyday of prosperity, far eclipsing 
that of all the British islands together. This was due 
partly to natural advantages, and partly to social condi- 
tions, — the planters being generally resident, which the 
British were not ; but cheaper supplies through free inter- 
course with the American continent also counted for much. 
From the French West Indies there entered the United 
States in 1790, 101,417 tons of shipping, of which only 
3,925 were French.^ From the British Islands there came 
90,375, but of these all but 4,057 were British.^ Return- 
ing, the exports from the United States to the two were 
respectively, 83,284,656 and $2,077,757.3 The flattering 
testimony borne by these figures to the meagreness of 
French navigation, in the particular quarter, needed doubt- 
less to be qualified by reference to their home trade from 
the West Indies, borne in French ships. This amounted 
in 1788 to 296,435 tons from Santo Domingo alone ; * 
whereas the British trade from all their islands employed 
but 133,736.'^ This, however, was the sole great carrying 
trade of France ; to the United States she sent from her 
home ports less than 13,000 tons. 

It was the opinion of the British committee that the 
privilege conceded to American shipping in the French 
islands was so contrary to established colonial policy as to 
be of doubtful continuance. Still, in concluding its report 

1 American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, vol. x. p. 47. 

- Ibid., p. 45. * Coxe, p. 171. 

3 Ibid., p. 24. 5 Committee's estimate ; Report, p. 43. 



84 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

with a summary of American commercial conditions, which 
it deemed were in a declining way, it took occasion to utter 
a warning, based upon these relations of America with the 
foreign colonies. In case of a commercial treaty, " Should 
it be proposed to treat on maritime regulations, any article 
allowing the ships of the United States to protect the prop- 
erty of the enemies of Great Britain in time of war " (that 
is, the flag to cover the goods), "should on no account be 
admitted. It would be more dangerous to concede this 
privilege to the United States than to any other foreign 
country. From their situation, the ships of these states 
would be able to cover the wdiole trade of P'rance and 
Spain with their islands and colonies, in America and the 
West Indies, whenever Great Britain shall be engaged with 
either of those Powers; and the navy of Great Britain 
would, in such case, be deprived of the means of dis- 
tressing the enemy, by destroying his commerce and 
thereby diminishing his resources." It is well to note in 
these words the contemporary recognition of the impor- 
tance of the position of the United States ; of the value of 
the colonial trade ; of the bearing of commerce destruction 
on war, by " diminishing the resources " of an enemy ; and 
of the opportunity of the United States, "• from their situ- 
ation," to cover the carriage of colonial produce to Europe ; 
for upon these several points turned much of the troubles, 
which by their accumulation caused mutual exasperation, 
and established an antagonism that inevitably lent itself 
to the war spirit when occasion arose. The specific warn- 
ing of the committee was doubtless elicited by the terms 
of the then recent British commercial treaty with France, 
in 1786, by which the two nations had agreed that, in case 
of war to which one was a party, the vessels of the other 
might freely carry all kinds of goods, the property of any 
person or nation, except contraband. Such a concession 
could be made safely to France, — was in fact perfectly 



FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAYS TREATY 85 

one-sided in favoring Great Britain ; but to America it 
would open unprecedented opportunity. 

To the state of things so far described came tlie French 
Revolution; already begun, indeed, when the committee 
sat, but the course of wliich could not yet be foreseen. Its 
coincidence with the formation of the new provernment of 
the United States is well to be remembered ; for the two 
events, by their tendencies, worked together to promote 
the antagonism between the United States and Great 
Britain, which was alretidy latent in the navigation system 
of the one and the maritime aptitudes of the other. 
Washington, the first American President, was inaugu- 
rated in March, 1789 ; in May, the States General of France 
met. In February, 1793, the French Republic declared 
war against Great Britain, and in jNIarch Washington 
entered on his second term. In the intervening four years 
the British Government had persisted in maintaining the 
exclusion of American carrying trade from her colonial 
ports. During the same period the great French colony 
Santo Domingo had undergone a social convulsion, which 
ended in the wreck of its entire industrial system by the 
disappearance of slavery, and M'ith it of all white govern- 
ment. The huge sugar and coffee product of the island 
vanished as a commercial factor, and with it the greater 
part of the colonial carriage of supplies, which liad indem- 
nified American shippers and agriculturists for their exclu- 
sion from British ports. Of 167,399 Ameiican tonnage 
entering American ports from the West Indies in 1790, 
101,417 had been from French islands. 

The removal of so formidable a competitor as Santo 
Domingo of course inured to the advantiige of the Britisli 
sugar and coffee planter, wlio was thus more able to bear 
the burden laid upon him to maintain the navigation of the 
empire, by paying a heavy percentage on his supplies. 
This, however, was not the only change in conditions 



86 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

affecting commerce and navigation. By 1793 it had be- 
come evident that Canada, Nova Scotia, and their neighbors, 
could not fill the place in an imperial system which it had 
been hoped they would take, as producers of lumber and 
food stuffs. This increased the relative importance of the 
West India Islands to the empire, just when the rise in 
price of sugar and coffee made it more desirable to develop 
their production. Should war come, the same reason would 
make it expedient to extend by conquest British productive 
territory in the Caribbean, and at the same time to cut off 
the supplies of such enemy's possessions as could not be 
subdued ; thus crippling them, and removing their compe- 
tition by force, as that of Santo Domingo had been by 
industrial ruin. These considerations tended further to 
fasten the interest of Great Britain upon this whole region, 
as particularly conducive to her navigation system. That 
cheapening supplies would stimulate production, to meet 
the favorable market and growing demands of the world, 
had been shown by the object-lesson of the French colonies ; 
though as yet the example had not been followed. 

At this time also Great Britain had to recognize her 
growing dependence upon tlie sea, because her home terri- 
tory had ceased to be self-sufficing. Her agriculture was 
becoming inadequate to feeding her people, in whose live- 
lihood manufactures and commerce were playing an in- 
creasing part. Both these, as well as food from abroad, 
required the command of the sea, in war as in peace, to 
import raw materials and export finished products ; and 
control of the sea required increase of naval resources, 
proportioned to the growing commercial movement. Ac- 
cording to the ideas of the age, the colonial monopoly was 
the surest means to this. It was therefore urgent to resort 
to measures which should develop the colonies ; and the 
question was inevitable whether reserving to British navi- 
gation the trade by which they were supplied was not more 



FROM IXDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S ^TREATY 87 

than compensated by tlie diminished production, with its 
effect in lessening the cargoes employing shipping for 
the homewai'd voyage. 

Thus things were when war broke out. The two objects, 
or motives, which have been indicated, came then at once 
into play. The conquest of the French West Indies, a 
perfectly legitimate move, was speedily undertaken ; and 
meanwhile orders passing the bounds of recognized inter- 
national law were issued, to suppress, by capture, their 
intercourse witli the United States, alike in import and 
export. The blow of course fell upon American shipping, 
by which this traffic was almost wholly maintained. This 
was the beginning of a long series of arbitrary measures, 
dictated by a policy uniform in principle, though often 
modified by dictates of momentary expediency. It lasted 
for years in its various manifestations, the narration of 
which belongs to subsequent chapters. Complementary 
to this was the effort to develop production in British 
colonies, by extending to them the neutral carriage denied 
to their enemies. This was effected by allowing direct 
trade between them and the United States to American 
vessels of not over seventy tons ; a limit substantially 
the same as that before imposed by France, and designed 
to prevent their surreptitiously conveying the cargoes to 
Europe, to the injury of British monopoly of the conti- 
nental supply, effected by tlie entrepot system, and doubly 
valuable since the failure of French products. 

This concession to American navigation, despite the 
previous opposition, liad become possible to Pitt, partly 
because its advisability had been demonstrated and the 
opportunity recognized ; partly, also, because the immense 
increase of the active navy, caused by the war, created a 
demand for seamen, which by impressment told heavily 
upon the merchant navigation of the kingdom, fostered for 
this very purpose. To meet this emergency, it was clearly 



i/ 



88 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

politic to devolve the supply of the British West Indies 
upon neutral carriers, who would enjoy an immunity from 
capture denied to merchant ships of a belligerent, as well 
as relieve British navigation of a function which it had 
never adequately fulfilled. The measure was in strict 
accord with the usual practice of remitting in war the 
requirement of the Navigation Act, that three-fourths of 
all crews should be British subjects; by which means a 
laro-e number of native seamen became at once released to 
the navy. To throw open a reserved trade to foreign ships, 
and a reserved employment to foreign seamen, are evidently 
only different applications of the one principle, viz.: to 
draw upon foreign aid, in a crisis to wliich the national 
navigation was unequal. 

Correlative to these measures, defensive in character, was 
the determination that the enemy should be deprived of 
these benefits ; that, so far as international law could be 
stretched, neutral ships should not help him as they were 
encouraged to help the British. The welfare of the empire 
also demanded that native seamen should not l3e allowed 
to escape their liability to impressment, by serving in neu- 
tral vessels. The lawless measures taken to insure these 
two objects were the causes avowed by the United States 
in 1812 for declaring war. The impressment of American 
seamen, however, although numerous instances had already 
occurred, had not yet made upon the national conscious- 
ness an impression at all proportionate to the magnitude 
of the wrong ; and the instructions given to Jay,^ as special 
envoy in 1794, while covering many points at issue, does 
not mention this, which eventually overtopped all others. 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. p. 472. 




JOHN JAY. 
From the pninling by Gilbert Stuart in Bedford (Jay) House, Katonah, N. Y. 



CHAPTER III 

FKOM JAY'S TREATY TO THE OEDERS 
IX COUNCIL 

1794-1807 

WHILE there were many matters in dispute 
between the two countries, the particular 
occasion of Jay's mission to London in 1794 
was tlie measures injurious to the commerce 
of tlie United States, taken by tlie British Government 
on tlie outbreak of war with France, in 1793. Neutrals 
are certain to suffer, directly and indirectly, from every 
war, and especially in maritime wars ; for then the great 
common of all nations is involved, under conditions and 
regulations which by general consent legalize interference, 
suspension, and arrest of neutral voyages, when conflicting 
with acknowledged belligerent rights, or under reasonable 
suspicion of such conflict. It was held in the United 
States that in the treatment of American ships Great 
Britain had transcended international law, and abused 
belligerent privilege, by forced construction in two partic- 
ulars. First, in June, 1793, she sent into her own ports 
American vessels bound to France with provisions, on the 
ground that under existing circumstance these were contra- 
band of war. She did indeed buy the cargoes, and pay 
the freight, thus reducing the loss to the shipper; but 
he was deprived of the surplus profit arising from ex- 
traordinary demand in France, and it was claimed besides 
that the procedure was illegal. Secondly, in November 
of the same year, the British Government directed tlie 
seizure of " all ships laden with goods the produce of any 



90 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

colony belonging to France, or carrying provisions or other 
supplies for the use of any such colony." Neutrals were 
thus forbidden either to go to, or to sail from, any French 
colony for purposes of commercial intercourse. For the 
injuries suffered under these measures Jay was to seek 
compensation. 

The first order raised only a question of contraband, 
of frequent recurrence in all hostilities. It did not affect 
the issues which led to the War of 1812, and therefore 
need not here be further considered. But the second 
turned purely on the question of the intercourse of neutrals 
with the colonies of belligerents, and rested upon those 
received opinions concerning the relations of colonies to 
mother countries, which have been related in the previous 
chapters. The British Government founded the justifica- 
tion of its action upon a precedent established by its own 
Admiralty courts, which, though not strictly new, was re- 
cent, dating back only to the Seven Years' War, 1756-63, 
whence it had received the name of the Rule of 1756. 
At that time, in the world of European civilization, all 
the principal maritime communities were either mother 
countries or colonies. A colonial system was the ap- 
pendage of every maritime state; and among all there 
obtained the invariable rule, the formulation of which by 
Montesquieu has been already quoted, that "commercial 
monopoly is the leading principle of colonial intercourse," 
from which foreign states were rigorously excluded. Deal- 
ing with such a recognized international relation, at a 
period when colonial production had reached unprece- 
dented proportions, the British courts had laid down the 
principle that a trade which a nation in time of peace 
forbade to foreigners could not be extended to them, if 
neutrals, in tune of war, at the will and for the conven- 
ience of the belligerent ; because by such employment they 
were " in effect incorporated in the enemy's navigation. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 91 

liaving adopted his commerce and character, and identified 
themselves with his interests and purposes." ^ 

During the next great maritime war, that of American 
Independence, the United States were involved as belliger- 
ents, and the only maritime neutrals were Holland and the 
Baltic States. These di-ew together in a league known his- 
torically as the Armed Neutrality of 1780, in opposition to 
certain Britisli interpretations of the rights of neutrals and 
belligerents ; but in their formulated demands that of open 
trade with the colonies of belligerents does not appear, 
although there is found one closely cognate to it, — an as- 
serted right to coasting trade, from port to port, of a coun- 
try at war. The Rule of 1756 therefore remained, in 1793, 
a definition of international maritime law laid down by 
British courts, but not elsewhere accepted ; and it rested 
upon a logical deduction from a system of colonial admin- 
istration universal at that period. The logical deduction 
may be stated thus. The mother country, for its own ben- 
efit, reserves to itself both the inward and outward trade ; 
the products of the colony, and the supplying of it with 
necessaries. The carriage of these commodities is also 
confined to its own ships. Colonial commerce and navi- 
gation are thus each a national monopoly. To open to 
neutrals the navigation, the carriage of products and sup- 
plies, in time of war, is a war measure simply, designed to 
preserve a benefit endangered by the other belligerent. As 
a war measure, it tends to support the financial and naval 
strength of the nation employing it ; and therefore, to an 
opponent whose naval power is capable of destroying that 
element of strength, the stepping in of a neutral to cover 
it is clearly an injury. The neutral so doing commits an 
unfriendly act, partial between the two combatants; be- 
cause it aids the one in a proceeding, the origin and object 
of which are purely belligerent. 

1 Wheatou's International Law, p. 753. 



92 A?; TE CEDE NTS OF THE WAR 

When the United States in 1776 entered the family of 
nations, she came without colonies, but in the war attend- 
ant upon her liberation she had no rights as a neutral. In 
the interval of peace, between 1783 and 1793, she had en- 
deavored, as has been seen, to establish between herself 
and the Caribbean region those conditions of open naviga- 
tion which were indicated as natural by the geographical 
relations of the two and their several products. This had 
been refused by Great Britain ; but France had conceded it 
on a restricted scale, plainly contrived, by the limitation of 
sixty tons on the size of vessels engaged, to counteract any 
attempt at direct carriage from the islands to Europe, which 
was not permitted. Under these circumstances the United 
States was brought into collision with the Rule of 1756, 
for the first time, by the Order in Council of November 6, 
1793. A people without colonies, and with a rapidly grow- 
ing navigation, could have no sympathy with a system, 
coextensive with Europe, which monopolized the carriage 
of colonial products. The- immediate attitude assumed was 
one of antagonism ; and the wrong as felt was the greater, 
because the direct intercourse between the United States 
and the then great French colonies was not incidental to 
war, but had been established in peace. In principle, the 
Rule rested for its validity upon an exception made in war, 
for the purposes of war. 

The British Government in fact had overlooked that tlie 
Rule had originated in European conditions ; and, if appli- 
cable at all to the new transatlantic state, it could only be 
if conditions were the same, or equivalent. Till now, by 
universal usage, trade from colonies had been only to the 
mother country ; the appearance of an American state with 
no colonies introduced two factors hitherto non-existent. 
Here was a people not identified with a general sj^stem of 
colonial exclusiveness ; and also, from their geographical 
situation, it was possible for a European government to per- 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IX COUNCIL 93 

niit them to trade with its colonies, without serious tres- 
pass on the privileges reserved to the mother country. The 
monopoly of the latter consisted not only in the commerce 
and carrying trade of the colony, but in the entrepot ; that 
is, in the receipt and storage of the colonial produce, and 
its distribution to less favored European communities, — 
the profit, in short, of the middleman, or broker. France 
liad recognized, though but partially, tliis difference of con- 
ditions, and in somewhat grudging manner had opened her 
West Indian ports to American vessels, for intercourse 
with their own country. This trade, being permitted in 
peace, did not come under the British Rule ; therefore 
by its own principle the seizures under it were unlawful. 
Accordingly, on January 8, 1794, the order was revoked, 
and the application limited to vessels bound from the 
West Indies direct to Europe. 

This further Order in Council preserved the principle of 
the Rule of 1756, but it removed the cause of a great 
number of the seizures wliich had afflicted American ship- 
ping. There were nevertheless, among these, some cases 
of vessels bound direct to France from French colonies, 
laden with colonial produce; one of which was the first 
presented to Ja}^ on his arrival in London. In writing to 
the Secretary of State he says, " It unfortunately happens 
that this is not among the strongest of the cases ; " and in 
a return made three years later to Congress, of losses re- 
covered under the treaty, this vessel's name does not ap- 
23ear. In the opinion of counsel, submitted to Jay, it was 
unlikely that the case Avould be reversed on appeal, be- 
cause it unequivocally fell under the Rule.^ It is therefore 
to be inferred that this principle, the operation of which 
was revived so disastrously in 1805, was not surrendered 
by the British Government in 1794. In fact, in the discus- 
sions between Mr. Jay and the British Minister of For- 

1 Americau State Papers, Forei<^n Relations, vol. i. p. 476. 



94 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

eign Affairs, there seems to have been on both sides a 
disposition to avoid i^ronouncements upon points of ab- 
stract right. It remained the constant policy of British 
negotiators, throughout this thorny period, to seek modes 
of temporary arrangement, which should obviate immediate 
causes of complaint ; leaving principles untouched, to be 
asserted, if desirable, at a more favorable moment. This 
was quite contrary to the wishes of the United States 
Government, which repeatedly intimated to Jay that in the 
case of the Rule of 1756 it desired to settle the question of 
principle, whicli it denied. To this it had attached several 
other topics touching maritime neutral rights, such as the 
flag covering the cargo, and matters of contraband. ^ 

Jay apparently satisfied himself, by his interviews and 
observation of public feeling in England, that at the mo- 
ment it was vain for a country without a navy to expect 
from Great Britain any surrender of right, as interpreted 
by her jurists ; that the most to be accomplished was the 
adoption of measures which should as far as possible ex- 
tend the immediate scope of American commerce, and re- 
move its present injuries, presenting withal a probability 
of future further concessions. In his letter transmitting 
the treaty, he wrote : " That Britain, at this period, and in- 
volved in war, should not admit principles which would 
impeach tlie propriety of her conduct in seizing provisions 
bound to France, and enemy's property on board neutral 
vessels, does not appear to me extraordinary. The articles, 
as they now stand, secure compensation for seizures, and 
leave us at liberty to decide whether they were made in 
such cases as to be warranted by the existing law of na- 
tions." ^ The italics are Jay's, and the expression is ob- 
scure ; but it seems to imply that, while either nation, in 
their respective claims for damages, would be bound by 
the decision of the commissioners provided for their settle- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Ilelatious, vol. li. pp. 472-474. 

2 Ibid., p. 503. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 95 

ment by the treaty, it would preserve the right to its own 
opinion as to whether the decision was in accordance with 
admitted law, binding in the future. In short, acceptance 
of the Rule of 1756 would not be affected by the findings 
upon the claims. If adverse to Great Britain, she could 
still assert the Rule in times to come, if expedient; if 
against the United States, she likewise, while submitting, 
reserved the right of protest, with or without arms, against 
its renewed enforcement. 

" As to the principles we contend for," continued Jay, 
" you will find them saved in the conclusion of the twelfth 
article, from which it will appear that we still adhere to 
them." This conclusion specifies that after the termina- 
tion of a certain period, during which Great Britain would 
open to American vessels the carrying trade between her 
West India Islands and the United States, there should be 
further negotiation, looking to the extension of mutual 
intercourse; "and the said parties will then endeavor to 
agree whether, in any, and what, cases neutral vessels 
shall protect enemy's property; and in what cases provi- 
sions and other articles, not generally contraband, may be- 
come such. But in the meantime, their conduct towards 
each other in these respects shall be regulated by the articles 
hereinafter inserted on those subjects." ^ The treaty there- 
fore was a temporary arrangement, to meet temporary diffi- 
culties, and involved no surrender of principle on either 
side. Although the Rule of 1756 is not mentioned, it evi- 
dently shared the same fate as the other American proposi- 
tions looking to the settlement of principles ; the more 
so that subsequent articles admitted, not only the un- 
doubted rule that the neutral flag did not cover enemy's 
goods, but also the vehemently disputed claim that naval 
stores and provisions Avere, or might be, contraband of war. 
Further evidence of the understanding of Great Britain in 

^ American State Papers, Foreign Kelations, vol. i. p. 522. 



96 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

this matter is afforded by a letter of the law adviser 
of the Crown, transmitted in 1801 by the Secretary for 
Foreign Affairs to Mr. King, then United States Minister. 
" The direct trade between the mother country and its 
colonies has not during this present war been recognized 
as legal, either by his Majesty's Government or by his 
tribunals." ^ 

It is to be inferred that the Administration and the 
Senate, while possibly thinking Jay too yielding as a 
negotiator, reached the conclusion that his estimate of 
British feeling, formed upon the spot, was correct as to 
the desfree of concession then to be obtained. At all 
events, the treaty, which provided for mixed commissions 
to adjudicate upon the numerous seizures made under the 
British orders, and, under certain conditions, admitted 
American vessels to branches of British trade previously 
closed to them, was ratified with the exception of the 
twelfth article. This conferred on Americans the privi- 
lege, long and urgently desired, of direct trade between 
their own country and the British West Indies on the 
same terms as British ships, though in vessels of limited 
size. Greatly desired as this permission had been, it came 
coupled with the condition, not only that cargoes from the 
islands should be landed in the United States alone, but 
also, while the concession lasted, American vessels should 
not carry " molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton " from 
tlie United States to any part of the world. By strict con- 
struction, this would prevent re-exporting the produce of 
French or other foreign colonies; a traffic, the extent of 
which during this war may be conceived by the returns for 
a single year, 1796, when United States shipping carried 
to Europe thirty-five million pounds of sugar and sixty- 
two million pounds of coffee, products of the Caribbean 
region. This article was rejected by the Senate, and the 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 491. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 97 

treaty ratified without it ; but the coveted privilege was 
continued by British executive order, the regulations in 
the matter being suspended on account of the war, and the 
trade opened to American as well as British ships. Osten- 
sibly a favor, not resting on the obligations of treaty, but 
on the precarious ground of the Government's will, its 
continuance was assured under the circumstances of the 
time by its practical utility to Great Britain ; for the trade 
■of that country, and its vital importance in the prevailing 
wars, were developing at a rate which outstripped its own 
tonnage. The numbers of native seamen were likewise in- 
adequate, through the heavy demands of the Navy for men. 
The concurrence of neutrals was imperative. Under the 
conditions it was no slight advantage to have the islands 
supplied and the American market retained, by the services 
of American vessels, leaving to British the monopoly of 
direct carrying between the colonies and Europe. 

Although vexations to neutrals incident to a state of 
war continued subsequent to this treaty, they turned upon 
points of construction and practice rather than upon prin- 
ciple. Negotiation was continuous ; and in September, 
1800, towards the close of Adams's administration, Mr. 
John Marshall, then Secretary of State, summed up exist- 
ing complaints of commercial injury under three heads, — 
definitions of contraband, methods of blockade, and the 
unjust decisions of Vice-Admiralty Courts ; coupled with 
the absence of penalty to cruisers making unwarranted 
captures, which emboldened them to seize on any ground, 
because certain to escape punishment. But no formal pro- 
nouncement further injurious to United States commerce 
was made by the British Government during this war, 
which ended in October, 1801, to be renewed eighteen 
months later. On the contrary, the progress of events in 
tlie West Indies, by its favorable effect upon British com- 
merce, assisted Pitt in taking the more liberal measures to 

VOL. I. — 7 



98 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

which by conviction he was always inclined. The destruc- 
tion of Haiti as a French colony, and to a great degree as 
-^ a producer of sugar and coffee, by eliminating one principal 
source of the world's supply, raised values throughout the 
remaining Caribbean ; while the capture of almost all the 
French and Dutch possessions threw their commerce and 
navigation into the hands of Great Britain. In this swell- 
ing prosperity the British planter, the British carrier, and the 
British merchant at home all shared, and so bore without 
apparent grudging the issuance of an Order, in January, 
1798, which extended to European neutrals the conces- 
sion, made in 1795 to the United States, of carrying West 
Indian produce direct from the islands to their own coun- 
try, or to Great Britain ; not, however, to a hostile port, or 
to any other neutral territory than their own. 

Although this Order in no way altered the existing 
status of the United States, it was embraced in a list 
of British measures affecting commerce,^ transmitted to 
Congress in 1808. From the American standpoint this 
was accurate ; for the extension to neutrals to carry to 
their own country, and to no other, continued the exclu- 
sion of the United States from a direct tralhc between the 
belligerent colonies and Europe, which she had steadily 
asserted to be her right, but which the Rule of 1756 de- 
nied. The utmost the United States had obtained was 
the restitution of privileges enjoyed by them as colo- 
nists of Great Britain, in trading with the British West 
Indies ; and this under circumstances of delay and bargain 
which showed clearly that the temporary convenience of 
Great Britain was alone consulted. No admission had 
been made on the point of right, as maintained by Amer- 
ica. On the contrary, the Order of 1798 was at pains to 
state as its motive no change of principle, but " considera- 
tion of the present state of the commerce of Great Britain, 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 263. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 99 

as well as of that of neutral countries," which makes it 
" expedient." ^ 

Up to the preliminaries of peace in 1801, nothing oc- 
curred to change that state of commerce which made expe- 
dient the Order of January, 1798. It was renewed in 
terms when M^ar again began between France and Great 
Britain, in May, 1803. In consideration of present con- 
ditions, the direct trade was permitted to neutral vessels 
between an enemy's colony and their own country. The 
United States remained, as before, excluded from direct 
carriage between tlie West Indies and Europe ; but the 
general course of the British Administration of the moment 
gave hopes of a line of conduct more conformable to Amer- 
ican standards of neutral rights. Particular!}', in reply 
to a remonstrance of the United States, a blockade of the 
whole coast of Martinique and Guadaloupe, proclaimed by 
a British admiral, was countermanded ; instructions being 
sent him that the measure could apply only to particular 
ports, actually invested by sufficient force, and that neu- 
trals attempting to enter should not be captured unless they 
had been previously warned.^ Although no concession of 
principle as to colonial trade had been made, the United 
States acquiesced in, though she cUd not accept, the condi- 
tions of its enforcement. These were well understood by 
the mercantile community, and were such as admitted of 
great advantage, both to the merchant and to the carrying 
trade. In 1808, Mr. Monroe, justifying his negotiations of 
1806, wrote that, even under new serious differences which 
had then arisen, " The United States were in a prosperous 
and happy condition, compared with that of other nations. 
As a neutral Power, they were almost the exclusive car- 
riers of the commerce of the whole world ; and in commerce 
they flourished beyond example, notwithstanding the losses 
they occasionally suffered." ^ 

1 American State Papers, roreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 265. 
^ Ibid., p. 266. ^ Ibid , p. 175. 



100 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Under such circumstances matters ran along smoothly 
for nearly two years. In May, 1804, occurred a change of 
administration in England, bringing Pitt again into power. 
As late as November 8 of this year, Jefferson in his 
annual message said, "• With the nations of Europe, in 
general, our friendship and intercourse are undisturbed ; 
and, from the governments of the belligerent powers, espe- 
cially, we continue to receive tliose friendly manifestations 
which are justly due to an honest neutrality." Monroe in 
London wrote at the same time, " Our commerce was never 
so much favored in time of war." ^ These words testify to 
general quietude and prosperity under existing conditions, 
but are not to be understood as affirming absence of sub- 
jects of difference. On the contrary, Monroe had been 
already some time in London, charged to obtain from Great 
Britain extensive concessions of principle and practice, 
which Jefferson, with happy optimism, expected a nation 
engaged in a life and death struggle would yield in virtue 
of reams of argument, maintaining views novel to it, 
advanced by a country enjoying the plenitude of peace, 
but without organized power to enforce its demands. 

About this time, but as yet unknown to the President, 
the question had been suddenly raised by the British Gov- 
ernment as to what constituted a direct trade ; and Ameri- 
can vessels carrying West Indian products from the United 
States to Europe were seized under a construction of 
" direct," which was affirmed by the court before whom 
the cases came for adjudication. As Jefferson's expressions 
had reflected the contentment of the American community, 
profiting, as neutrals often profit, by the misfortunes of 
belligerents, so these measures of Pitt proceeded from the 
discontents of planters, shippers, and merchants. These 
had come to see in the prosperity of American shipping, 
and the gains of American merchants, the measure of their 

1 American State Papers, Foreign llelatious, vol. iii. p. 98. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 101 

own losses by a trade which, though of long standing, 
they now claimed was one of direct carriage, because by 
continuous voyage, between the hostile colonies and the 
continent of Europe. The losses of planter and merchant, 
however, were but one aspect of the question, and not the 
most important in British eyes. The products of hostile 
origin carried by Americans to neutral or hostile countries 
in Europe did by competition reduce seriously the profit 
upon British colonial articles of the same kind, to the 
injury of the finances of the kingdom ; and the American 
carriers, the American ships, not only supplanted so much 
British tonnage, but were enabled to do so by British sea- 
men, who found in them a quiet refuge — relatively, though 
not wholly, secure — from the impressment which every- 
where pursued the British merchant ship. It was a fun- 
damental conviction of all British statesmen, and of the 
general British public, that the welfare of the navy, the one 
defence of the empire, depended upon maintaining the 
carrying trade, with the right of impressment from it ; and 
Pitt, upon his return to office, had noted " with consider- 
able concern, the increasing acrimony which appears to 
pervade the representations made to you [the British 
Minister at Washington] by the American Secretary of 
State on the subject of the impressment of seamen from 
on board American ships." ^ 

The issue of direct trade was decided adversely to the 
contention of the United States, in the test case of the ship 
"Essex," in May, 1805, by the first living authority in 
England on maritime international law. Sir William Scott. 
Resting upon the Rule of 1756, he held that direct trade 
from belligerent colonies to Europe was forbidden to 
neutrals, except under the conditions of the relaxing 
Orders of 1798 and 1803 ; but the privilege to carry to 
their own country having been by these extended, it was 

1 History of the United States, by Henry Adams, vol. ii. p. 423. 



102 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

conceded, in accordance with precedent, that products thus 
imported, if they had complied with the legal requirements 
for admission to use in the importing country, thenceforth 
had its nationality. They became neutral in character, 
and could be exported like native produce to any place 
open to commerce, belligerent or neutral. United States 
shippers, therefore, were at liberty to send even to France 
French colonial products which had been thus American- 
ized. The effect of this procedure upon the articles in 
question was to raise their price at the place of final 
arrival, by all the expense incident to a broken transit ; 
by the cost of landing, storing, paying duties, and reship- 
ping, together with that of the delay consequent upon 
entering an American port to undergo these processes. 
With the value thus enhanced upon reaching the conti- 
nent of Europe, the British planter, carrier, and merchant 
might hope that British West India produce could com- 
pete ; although various changes of conditions in the West 
Indies, and Bonaparte's efforts at the exclusion of British 
products from the continent, had greatly reduced their 
market there from the fair proportions of the former war. 
In the cases brought before Sir William Scott, however, 
it was found that the duties paid for admission to the 
United States were almost wholly released, by drawback, 
on re-exportation ; so that the articles were brought to the 
continental consumer relieved of this principal element of 
cost. He therefore ruled that they had not complied 
with the conditions of an actual importation; that the 
articles had not lost their belhgerent character; and that 
the carriage to Europe was by direct voyage, not inter- 
rupted by an importation. The vessels were therefore 
condemned. 

The immediate point thus decided was one of construc- 
tion, and in particular detail hitherto unsettled. The law 
adviser of the Crown had stated in 1801, as an accepted 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 103 

precedent, " that lauding the goods and paying the duties 
in the neutral country breaks the continuity of the voy- 
age ; " ^ but the circumstance of drawback, which belonged 
to the municipal prerogative of the independent neutral 
state, had not then been considered. The foundation on 
which all rested was the principle of 1756. The underly- 
ing motive for the new action taken — the protection of a 
British traffic — linked the War of 1812 with the conditions 
of colonial dependence of the United States, which was a 
matter of recent memory to men of both countries still in 
the vigor of life. The American found again exerted over 
his national commerce a control indistinguishable in prac- 
tice from that of colonial days ; from what port his ships 
should sail, whither they might go, what cargoes they might 
carry, under what rules be governed in their own ports, were 
dictated to him as absolutely, if not in as extensive detail, 
as before the War of Independence. The British Gov- 
ernment placed itself in the old attitude of a sovereign 
authority, regulating the commerce of a dependency with 
an avowed view to the interest of the mother country. 
This motive was identical with that of colonial administra- 
tion ; the particular form taken being dictated, of course, 
then as before, by the exigencies of the moment, — by 
a " consideration of the present state of the commerce of 
this country." Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney, who were 
appointed jointly to negotiate a settlement of the trouble, 
wrote that " the British commissioners did not hesitate to 
state that their wish was to place their own merchants on 
an equal footing in the great markets of the continent 
with those of the United States, by burthening the inter- 
course of the latter with severe restrictions." ^ The wish 
was allowable ; but the method, the regulation of American 
commercial movement by British force, resting for justifi- 

1 Americau State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 491. 
" Ibid., vol. iii. p. 145. 



104 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

cation upon a strained interpretation of a contested bellig- 
erent right, was naturally and accurately felt to be a 
re-imposition of colonial fetters upon a people who had 
achieved their independence. 

The motive remained; and the method, the regulation of 
American trade by British orders, was identical in sub- 
stance, although other in form, with that of the celebrated 
Orders in Council of 1807 and 1809. Mr. Monroe, who 
was minister to England Avhen this interesting period 
began, had gone to Spain on a special mission in October, 
1804, shortly after his announcement, before quoted, that 
" American commerce was never so much favored in time 
of war." " On no principle or pretext, so far, has more 
than one of our vessels been condemned." Upon his 
return in July, 1805, he found in full progress the seizures, 
the legality of which had been afftrmed by Sir William 
Scott. A prolonged correspondence with the then British 
Government followed, but no change of policy could be 
obtained. In January, 1806, Pitt died; and the ministry 
which succeeded was composed largely of men recently op- 
posed to him in general principles of action. In particular, 
Mr. Fox, between whom and Pitt there had been an antag- 
onism nearly lifelong, became Secretary for Foreign Affairs. 
His good dispositions towards America were well known, 
and dated from the War of Independence. To Inm Monroe 
wrote that under the recent measures " about one hundred 
and twenty vessels had been seized, several condemned, 
all taken from their course, detained, and otherwise sub- 
jected to heavy losses and damages.'" ^ The injury was 
not confined to the immediate sufferers, but reacted neces- 
sarily on the general commercial system of the United 
States. 

In his first conversations with Monroe, Fox appeared to 
coincide with the American view, both as to the impro- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 114. 




JAMES MONROE. 
From the painting hij Gilbert Stuart in the possession of lion. T. Jefferson Ccolidge. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 105 

priety of the seizures and the general right of the United 
States to the trade in dispute, under their own inter- 
pretation of it ; namely, tliat questions of duties and 
drawbacks, and the handling of the cargoes in Ameri- 
can ports, were matters of national regulation, upon which 
a foreign state had no claim to pronounce. The American 
envoy was sanguine of a favorable issue ; but the British 
Secretary had to undergo the experience, which long exclu- 
sion from oihce made novel to him, that in the compli- 
cations of political life a broad personal conviction has 
often to yield to the narrow logic of particular conditions. 
It is clear that the measures would not have been insti- 
tuted, had he been in control ; but, as it was, the American 
representative demanded not only their discontinuance, 
but a money indemnity. The necessity of reparation for 
wrong, if admitted, stood in the way of admitting as a 
wrong a proceeding authorized by the last Government, 
and pronounced legal by the tribunals. To this obstacle 
was added the weight of a strong outdoor public feeling, 
and of opposition in the Cabinet, by no means in accord 
upon Fox's general views. Consequently, to Monroe's 
demands for a concession of principle, and for pecuniary 
compensation. Fox at last replied with a proposition, con- 
sonant with the usual practical tone of English states- 
manship, never more notable than at this period, that a 
compromise should be effected ; modifying causes of com- 
plaint, without touching on principles. "Can we not 
agree to suspend our rights, and leave you in a satis- 
factory manner the enjoyment of the trade ? In that case, 
nothing would be said about the principle, and there would 
be no claim to indemnity." ^ 

The United States Government, throughout the contro- 
versy which began here and lasted till the war, clung with 
singular tenacity to the establishment of principles. To 

1 Monroe to Madison, April 28, 1806. American State Papers, vol. iii. 
p. 117. 



106 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

this doubtless contributed much the personality of Madison, 
then Secretary of State ; a man of the pen, clear-headed, 
logical, incisive, and delighting like all men in the exercise 
of conscious powers. The discussion of principles, the ex- 
posure of an adversary's weakness or inconsistencies, the 
weighty marshalling of uncounted words, were to him the 
breath of life ; and with happy disregard of the need to 
back phrases with deeds, there now opened before him a 
career of argumentation, of logical deduction and exposi- 
tion, constituting a condition of political and personal en- 
joyment which only the deskman can fully appreciate. It 
was not, however, an era in which the pen was mightier 
than the sword ; and in the smooth gliding of the current 
Niagara was forgotten. Like Jefferson, he was wholly ob- 
livious of the relevancy of Pompey's retort to a contention 
between two nations, each convinced of its own right : 
" Will you never have done witli citing laws and privileges 
to men who wear swords ? " 

To neither President nor Secretary does it seem to have 
occurred that the provision of force might lend weight to 
argument; a consideration to which Monroe, intellectually 
much their inferior, was duly sensible. " Nothing will be 
obtained without some kind of pressure, such a one as ex- 
cites an apprehension that it will be increased in case of 
necessity ; and to produce that effect it will be proper to 
put our country in a better state of defence, by invigorat- 
ing the militia system and increasing the naval force." 
"Victorious at sea. Great Britain finds herself compelled 
to concentrate her force so much in this quarter, that she 
would not only be unable to annoy us essentially in case of 
war, but even to protect her commerce and possessions 
elsewhere, which would be exposed to our attacks." ^ Most 
true when written, in 1805 ; the time had passed in 1813. 
*' Harassed as they are already with war, and the menaces 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 111. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 107 

of a powerful adve,rsaiy, a state of hostility with us would 
probably go far to throw this country into confusion. It 
is an event which the ministry would find it diiiicult to 
resist, and therefore cannot, I presume, be willing to en- 
counter." 1 But he added, " There is here an opinion, which 
many do not hesitate to avow, that the United States are, 
by the nature of their Government, incapable of any great, 
vigorous, or persevering exertion." i This impression, for 
which it must sorrowfully be confessed there was much 
seeming ground in contemporary events, and the idiosyn- 
crasies of Jefferson and Madison, in their full dependence 
upon commercial coercion to reduce Great Britain to con- 
cede their most extreme demands, contributed largely to 
maintain the successive British ministries in that uncon- 
ciliatory and disdainful attitude towards the United States, 
wdiich made inevitable a war that a higher bearing might 
have averted. 

Monroe had been instructed that, if driven to it, he 
might waive the practical right to sail direct from a bel- 
ligerent colony to the mother country, being careful to 
use no expression that would imply yielding of the ab- 
stract principle. But the general insistence of his Govern- 
ment upon obtaining from Great Britain acknowledgment 
of right was so strong that he could not accept Fox's sug- 
gestion. The British Minister, forced along the lines of 
his predecessors by the logic of the situation, then took 
higher ground. '^ He proceeded to insist that," to break 
the continuity of the voyage, " our vessels which should 
be engaged in that commerce must enter our ports, their 
cargoes be landed, and the duties paid." '-^ This was the 
full extent of Pitt's requirements, as of the rulings of the 
British Admiralty Court; and made the regulation of 
transactions in an American port depend upon the deci- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 109, 107. 

2 Ibid., p. 118. 



108 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

sions of British authorities. Monroe unhesitatingly re- 
jected the condition, and their interview ended, leaving 
the subject where it had been. The British Cabinet then 
took matters into its own hands, and without further com- 
munication with Monroe adopted a practical solution, 
which removed the particular contention from the field of 
controversy by abandoning the existing measures, but 
without any expression as to the question of right or prin- 
ciple, which by this tacit omission was reserved. Unfor- 
tunately for the wishes of both parties, this recourse to 
opportunism, for such it was, however ameliorative of im- 
mediate friction, resulted in a further series of quarrels ; 
for the new step of the British Government was considered 
by the American to controvert international principles as 
much cherished by it as the right to the colonial trade. 
Monroe's interview was on April 25. On May 17 he 
received a letter from Fox, dated May 16, notifying him 
that, in consequence of certain new and extraordinary 
means resorted to by the enemy for distressing British 
commerce, a retaliatory commercial blockade was ordered 
of the coast of the continent, from the river Elbe to 
Brest. This blockade, however, was to be absolute, against 
all commerce, only between the Seine and Ostend. Out- 
side of those limits, on the coast of France west of the 
Seine, and those of France, Holland, and Germany east of 
Ostend, the rights of capture attaching to blockades would 
be forborne in favor of neutral vessels, bound in, which 
had not been laden at a port hostile to Great Britain ; or 
which, going out, were not destined to such hostile port.^ 
No discrimination was made against the character of the 
cargo, except as forbidden by generally recognized laws of 
war. This omission tacitly allowed the colonial trade 
by way of American ports, just as the measure as a whole 

1 For the text of this measure, see American State Papers, Foreign Kela- 
tioijs, vol. iii. p. 267. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 109 

tacitly waived all questions of principle upon which that 
difference had turned. After this, a case coming before a 
British court would require from it no concession affecting 
its previous rulings. By these the vessel still would stand 
condemned ; but she was relieved from the application of 
them by the new Order, in which the Government had 
relinquished its asserted right. The direct voyage from 
the colony to the mother country was from a hostile port, 
and therefore remained prohibited ; but the proceedings 
in the United States ports, as affecting the question of 
direct voyage, though held by the Court to be properly 
liable to interpretation by itself on international grounds, 
if brought before it, was removed from its purview by 
the act of its own Government, granting immunity. 

The first impressions made upon Monroe by this step 
were favorable, as it evidently relieved the immediate 
embarrassments under which American commerce was 
laboring. There would at least be no more seizures upon 
the plea of direct voyages. While refraining from express- 
ing to Fox any approbation of the Order of May 16, he 
wrote home in this general sense of congratulation ; and 
upon his letters, communicated to Congress in 1808, was 
founded a claim by the British Minister at Washington 
in 1811, that the blockade thus instituted was not at 
the time regarded by him " as founded on other than just 
and legitimate principles." "I have not heard that it 
was considered in a contrary light when notified as such 
to you by Mr. Secretary Fox, nor until it suited the 
views of France to endeavor to have it considered other- 
wise." ^ Monroe, who was then Secretary of State, replied 
that with Fox " an otlicial formal complaint was not likely 
to be resorted to, because friendly communications were 
invited and preferred. The want of such a document is 
no proof that the measure was approved by me, or no com- 

1 Americau State Papers, Foreign llelatious, vol. iii. p. 443. 



110 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

plaint made."^ The general tenor of his home letters, 
however, was that of satisfaction ; and it is natural to men 
dealing with questions of immediate . difficulty to hail 
relief, without too close scrutiny into its ultimate conse- 
quences. It may be added that ministers abroad, in close 
contact with the difficulties and perplexities of the govern- 
ment to which they are accredited, recognize these more 
fully than do their superiors at home, and are more sus- 
ceptible to the advantages of practical remedies over the 
maintenance of abstract principle. 

The legitimacy of the blockade of May 16, 1806, was 
afterwards sharply contested by the United States. There 
was no difference between the two governments as to the 
general principle that a blockade, to be lawful, must be 
supported by the presence of an adequate force, making it 
dangerous for a vessel trying to enter or leave the port. 
" Great Britain," wrote Madison, " has already in a formal 
communication admitted the principle for which we con- 
tend." The difficulty turned on a point of definition, as 
to what situation, and what size, of a blockading division 
constituted adequacy. The United States authorities based 
themselves resolutely on the position that the blockaders 
must be close to the ports named for closure, and denied 
that a coast-line in its entirety could thus be shut off from 
commerce, without specifying the particular harbors be- 
fore which ships would be stationed. Intent, as neutrals 
naturally are, upon narrowing belligerent rights, usually 
adverse to their own, they placed the strictest construction 
on the words "port" and "force." This is perhaps best 
shown by quoting the definition proposed by American 
negotiators to the British Government over a year later, — 
July 24, 1807. "In order to determine what characterizes 
a blockade, that denomination is given only to a port^ 
where there is, by the disposition of the Power which 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 446. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL HI 

blockades it with ships stationary, an evident danger in 
enteiing."^ Madison, in 1801, discussing vexations to 
Americans bound into the Mediterranean, by a Spanish 
alleged blockade of Gibraltar, had anticipated and rejected 
the British action of 1806. " Like blockades miorht be 
proclaimed by any particular nation, enabled by its naval 
superiorit}' to distribute its ships at the mouth" of that or 
any similar sea, or across charmcls or arms of the sea, so 
as to make it dangerous for the commerce of other nations 
to pass to its destination. These monstrous consequences 
condemn the principle from which they flow." ^ 

The blockade of May 16 offered a particularly apt illus- 
tration of the point at issue. From the entrance of the 
English Channel to the Straits of Dover, the whole of 
both shore-lines was belhg^erent. On one side all was 
British; on the other all French. Evidently a line of 
ships disposed from Ushant to the Lizard, the nearest 
point on the English coast, would constitute a very real 
danger to a vessel seeking to approach any Fiench port 
on the Channel. Fifteen vessels would occupy such a 
line, with intervals of only six miles, and in combination 
with a much smaller body at the Straits of Dover would 
assuredly bring all the French coast between them within 
the limits of any definition of danger. That these par- 
ticular dispositions were adopted does not appear; but 
that very much larger numbers were continually moving 
in the Channel, back and forth in every direction, is certtiin. 
As to the remainder of the coast declared under restriction, 
from the Straits to the Elbe, — about four hundred miles, — 
with the great entrances to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amster- 
dam, the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, there can be no 
doubt that it was within the power of Great Britain to 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 195. Author's 
italics. 

2 Ibid., p. 371. 



112 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

establish the blockade within the requirements of inter- 
national law. Whether she did so was a question of fact, 
on which both sides were equally positive. The British 
to the last asserted that an adequate force had been 
assigned, " and actually maintained," ^ while the blockade 
lasted. 

The incident derived its historical significance chiefly 
from subsequent events. It does not appear at the first 
to have engaged the special attention of the United States 
Government, the general position of which, as to block- 
ades, was already sufficiently defined. The particular in- 
stance was only one among several, and interest was then 
diverted to two other leading points, — impressment and 
the colonial trade. Peculiar importance began to attach 
to it only in the following November, when Napoleon is- 
sued his Berlin decree. Upon this ensued the exaggerated 
oppressions of neutral commerce by both antagonists ; and 
the question arose as to the responsibihty for beginning the 
series of measures, of which the Berlin and Milan Decrees 
on one side, and the British Orders in Council of 1807 and 
1809 on the other, were the most conspicuous features. 
Napoleon contended that the whole sprang from the ex- 
travagant pretensions of Great Britain, particularly in the 
Order of May 16, whicli he, in common with the United 
States, characterized as illegal. The British Government 
affirmed that it was strictly within belligerent rights, and 
was executed by an adequate force ; that consequently it 
gave no ground for the course of the French Emperor. 
American statesmen, while disclaiming with formal gravity 
any purpose to decide with which of the two wrong-doers 
the ill first began,^ had no scruples about reiterating con- 
stantly that the Order of May 16 contravened international 

1 See, particularly, Foster to Monroe, July 3, 1811. American State 
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 436. 

2 Ibid., pp. 428, 439. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCTL 113 

right ; and in so far, although wholly within the limits of 
diplomatic propriety, they supported Napoleon's assertion. 
Thus it came to pass that the United States was more and 
more felt, not only in Europe, but by dissentients at home, 
to side with France ; and as the universal contest grew 
more embittered, this feeling became emphasized. 

While these discussions w^ere in progress between Mon- 
roe and Fox, the United States Government had taken a 
definite step to bring the dispute to an issue hj commer- 
cial restriction. The remonstrances from the mercantile 
community, against the seizures under the new ruling as 
to direct trade, were too numerous, emphatic, and withal 
reasonable, to be disregarded. Congress therefore, before 
its adjournment on April 23, 180(3, passed a law shutting 
the American market, after the following November 15, 
against certain articles of British manufacture, unless 
equitable arrangements between the two countries should, 
previously be reached. This recourse was in line with 
the popular action of the period preceding the War of 
Independence, and foreshadowed the general policy upon 
which the Administration was soon to enter on a larger 
scale. The measure was initiated before news was received 
of Pitt's death, and the accession of a more friendly minis- 
tr}- ; but, having been already recommended in committee, 
it was not thought expedient to recede in consequence of 
the change. At the same time, the Administration deter- 
mined to constitute an extraordinary mission, for the pur- 
pose of " treating with the British Government concerning 
the maritime wrongs which have been committed, and the 
regulation of commercial navigation between the parties." 
For this object Mr. William Pinkney, of Maryland, was 
nominated as colleague to Monroe, and arrived in England 
on June 24. 

The points to be adjusted by the new commissioners were 
numerous, but among them two were made pre-eminent, — 



114 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the question of colonial trade, already explained, and that 
of impressment of seamen from American vessels. These 
were named by the Secretary of State as the motive of the 
recent Act prohibiting certain importations. The envoys 
were explicitly instructed that no stipulation requiring 
the repeal of that Act was to be made, unless an effectual 
remedy for these two evils was provided. The question 
of impressment, wrote Madison, "derives urgency from 
the licentiousness with which it is still pursued, and from 
the growing impatience of this country under it." ^ When 
Pinkney arrived, the matter of the colonial trade had 
already been settled indirectly by the Order of May 16, 
and it was soon to disappear from prominence, merged 
in the extreme measures of which that blockade was the 
precursor ; but impressment remained an unhealed sore to 
the end. 

To understand the real gravity of this dispute, it is es- 
sential to consider candidly the situation of both parties, 
and also the influence exerted upon either by long-standing 
tradition. The British Government did not advance a 
crude claim to impress American seamen. What it did 
assert, and was enforcing, was a right to exercise over 
individuals on board foreign merchantmen, upon the high 
seas, the authority wliich it possessed on board British 
ships there, and over all ships in British ports. The 
United States took the ground that no such jurisdiction 
existed, unless over persons engaged in the military service 
of an enemy ; and that only when a vessel entered the ports 
or territorial waters of Great Britain were those on board 
subject to arrest by her officers. There, as in every state, 
they came under the law of the land. 

The British argument in favor of this alleged right may 
be stated in the words of Canning, who became Foreign 

1 The lustructions to Monroe and I'inkney are found in American State 
Papers, Foreign delations, vol. iii. p. 120. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 115 

Secretary a year later. Writing to Monroe, September 23, 
1807, lie starts from the premise, then regarded by many 
even in America as sound, that allegiance by birth is 
inalienable, — not to be renounced at the will of the indi- 
vidual ; consequently, "when mariners, subjects of his 
Majesty, are employed in tlie private service of foreign- 
ers, they enter into engagements inconsistent with tlie 
duty of subjects. In such cases, the species of redress 
which the practice of all times has admitted and sanc- 
tioned is that of taking those subjects at sea out of the 
service of such foreign individuals, and recalling them to 
the discharge of that paramount duty, which they owe to 
their sovereign and to their country. That thp exercise of 
this right involves some of the dearest interests of Great 
Britain, your Government is ready to acknowledge. . . . 
It is needless to repeat that these rights existed in their 
fullest force for ages previous to the establishment of the 
United States of America as an independent government ; 
and it would be difficult to contend that the recosfnition of 
that independence can have operated any change in this 
respect." ^ 

Had this been merely a piece of clever argumentation, 
it would have crumbled rapidly under an appreciation 
of the American case ; but it represented actually a con- 
viction inherited by all the British people, and not that 
of Canning onl}^ Wlietlier the foundation of the alleged 
right was solidly laid in reason or not, it rested on alleged 
prescription, indorsed by a popular acceptance and suffrage 
which no ministry could afford to disregard, at a time 
when the manning of the Royal Navy was becoming a 
matter of notorious and increasing difficulty. If Amer- 
icans saw with indignation that many of their fellow- 
citizens were by the practice forced from their own ships 
to serve in British vessels of war, it was equally well 

1 AmericaD State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 200, 201. 



116 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

knowii, in America as in Great Britain, that in the mer- 
chant vessels of the United States Were many British 
seamen, sorely needed by their country. Public opinion 
in the United States was by no means united in support 
of the position then taken by Jefferson and Madison, as 
well as by their predecessors in oftice, proper and matter- 
of-course as that seems to-day. Many held, and asserted 
even with vehemence, that the British right existed, and 
that an indisputable wrong was committed by giving the 
absentees shelter under the American flag. The claim 
advanced by the United States Government, and the only 
one possible to it under the circumstances, was that when 
outside of territorial limits a ship's flag and papers must 
be held to determine the nation, to which alone belonged 
jurisdiction over every person on board, unless demon- 
strably in the military service of a belligerent. 

As a matter involving extensive practical consequences, 
this contention, like that concerning the colonial trade, had 
its origin from the entrance into the family of European 
nations of a new-comer, foreign to the European community 
of states and their common traditions ; indisposed, conse- 
quently, to accept by mere force of custom rules and prac- 
tices unquestioned by them, but traversing its own interests. 
As Canning argued, the change of political relation, by 
which the colonies became independent, could not affect 
rights of Great Britain which did not derive from the 
colonial connection; but it did introduce an opposing 
rioht, — that of the American citizen to be free from Brit- 
isli control when not in British territory. This the United 
States possessed in common with all foreign nations ; but 
in her case it could not, as in theirs, be easily reconciled 
with the claim of Great Britain. When every one whose 
native tongue was English was also by birth the subject 
of Great Britain, the visitation of a foreign neutral, in 
order to take from her any British seamen, involved no 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 117 

great difficulty of discrimination, nor — granting the the- 
ory of inalienable allegiance — any injustice to the per- 
son taken. It was quite different when a large maritime 
English-speaking population, quite comparable in numbers 
to that remaining British, had become independent. The 
exercise of the British right, if right it was, became liable 
to grievous wrong, not only to the individuals affected, but 
to the nation responsible for their protection; and the 
injury was greater, both in procedure and result, because 
the officials intrusted with the enforcement of the British 
claim were personally interested in the decisions they 
rendered. No one who understands the affection of a, 
naval officer for an able seaman, especially if his ship be 
short-handed, will need to have explained how difficult it 
became for him to distinguish between an Englishman and 
an American, when much wanted. In short, there was 
on each side a practical grievance ; but the character of 
the remedy to be applied involved a question of principle, 
the effect of which would be unequal between the disput- 
ants, increasing the burden of the one Avhile it diminished 
that of the other, according as the one or the other solution 
was adopted. 

Except for the fact that the British Government had at 
its disposal overwhelming physical force, its case would 
have shared that of all other prescriptive rights when they 
come into collision with present actualities, demanding 
their modification. It might be never so true that long- 
standing precedent made legal the impressment of British 
seamen from neutral vessels on the open sea ; but it re- 
mained that in practice many American seamen were seized, 
and forced into involuntary servitude, the duration of which, 
under the customs of the British Navy, was terminable cer- 
tainly only by desertion or death. The very difficulty of 
distingnishino- between the natives of the two countries, 
" owing to similarity of language, habits, and manners," ^ 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 148. 



118 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

alleged in 1797 by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord 
Grenville, to Rufus King, the American Minister, did but 
emphasize the incompatibility of the British claim with 
the security of the American citizen. The Consul-General 
of Great Britain at New York during most of this stormy 
period, Thomas Barclay, a loyalist during the War of 
Independence, affirms from time to time, with evident 
sincerity of conviction, the wishes of the British Govern- 
ment and naval officers not to impress American seamen ; 
but his published correspondence contains none the less 
several specific instances, in which he assures British ad- 
mirals and captains that impressed men serving on board 
their ships are beyond doubt native Americans, and his 
editor remarks that "only a few of his many appeals on 
behalf of Americans unlawfully seized are here printed." ^ 
This, too, in the immediate neighborhood of the United 
States, where evidence was most readily at hand. The 
condition was intolerable, and in principle it mattered 
nothing whether one man or many thus suffered. That 
the thing was possible, even for a single most humble and 
unknown native of the United States, condemned the 
system, and called imperiously for remedy. The only 
effectual remedy, however, was the abandonment of the 
practice altogether, whether or not the theoretic ground for 
such abandonment was that advanced by the United States. 
Long before 1806, experience had demonstrated, what had 
been abundantly clear to foresight, that a naval lieutenant 
or captain could not safely be intrusted with a function so 
delicate as deciding the nationality of a hkely English- 
speaking topman, whom, if British, he had the power to 
impress. 

The United States did not refuse to recognize, distinctly 
if not fully, the embarrassment under which Great Britain 

1 Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, edited by George L. Rives, New 
York, 1894. For instances, see Index, Impressment. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 119 

labored by losing the services of her seamen at a moment 
of such national exigency; and it was prepared to offer 
many concessions in municipal regulations, in order to 
exclude British subjects from American vessels. Various 
propositions were advanced looking to the return of de- 
serters and to the prevention of enlistments ; coupled 
always with a renunciation of the British claim to take 
persons from under the American flag. There had been 
much negotiation b}^ individual ministers of the United 
States in the ordinary course of their duties ; beginning 
as far back as 1787, when Jolni Adams had to remon- 
strate vigorously with the Cabinet " against this practice, 
which lias been too common, of impressing American citi- 
zens, and especially with the aggravating circumstances of 
going on board American vessels, which ouglit to be pro- 
tected by the flag of their sovereign." ^ Again, in 1790, on 
hostilities threatening with Spain, a number of American 
seamen were impressed in British ports. The arrests, 
being within British waters, were not an infringement of 
American jurisdiction, and the only question then raised 
was that of proving nationality, Gouverneur Morris, who 
afterwards so violently advocated the British claim to 
impress their own subjects in American vessels on the seas,^ 
was at this time in London on a special semi-ofiicial errand, 
committed to him by President Washington. There being 
then no American resident minister, he took upon himself 
to mention to the Foreign Secretary " the conduct of their 
pressgangs, who had taken many American seamen, and 
had entered American vessels with as little ceremony as 
those belonging to Britain ; " adding, with a caustic humor 
characteristic of him, " I believe, my Lord, this is the only 
instance in which we are not treated as aliens." He sug- 
gested certificates of citizenship, to be issued by the Ad- 
miralty Courts of the United States. This was approved 

1 Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 456. ^ Ante, p. 6. 



120 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

by the Secretary and by Pitt ; the Litter, however, remark- 
ing that the plan was " very liable to abuse, notwithstanding 
every precaution." ^ Various expedients for attaching to 
the individual documentary evidence of birth were from 
time to time tried ; but the heedless and inconsequent 
character and habits of the sailor of that day, and the 
facility with which the papers, once issued, could be trans, 
feired or bought, made any such resource futile. The 
United States was thus driven to the position enunciated 
in 1792 by Jeft'erson, then Secretary of State: "The sim- 
plest rule will be that the vessel being American shall be 
evidence that the seamen on board of her are such." ^ If 
this demand comprehended, as it apparently did, cases of 
arrest in British harbors, it was clearly extravagant, resem- 
bling the idea proceeding from the same source that the 
Gulf Stream should mark the neutral line of United States 
waters ; but for the open sea it formulated tlie doctrine on 
which the country finally and firmly took its stand. 

The history of the practice of impressment, and of 
tlie consequent negotiations, from the time of Jefferson's 
first proposition down to the mission of Monroe and 
Pinkney, had shown conclusively tliat no other basis 
of settlement than that of the flag vouching for the 
crew could adequately meet and remove the evil of which 
the United States complained; an evil which was not 
only an injury to the individuals affected, but a dis- 
honor to the nation which should continue to submit. 
The subject early engaged the care of Rufus King, who 
became Minister to Great Britain in 1796. In 1797, 
Lord Grenville and he had a correspondence,^ which 
served merely to develop the difficulties on both sides, 
and things drifted from bad to worse. Not only was 

1 American State I'apers, Foreign Eelations, vol. i. pp. 123-124. 
^ Jefferson's Works, Letter to T. Piuckney, Minister to Great Britain, 
June 11, 1792. 

^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. pp. 145-150. 




THO:\IAS JEFFERSON. 
From the pninting by Gilbert StiKirt in Bowdoin College, Brunsu'ich, Me. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 121 

there the oppression of the individual, but the safety 
of ships was endangered by the ruthless manner in which 
they were robbed of their crews; an evil from wliich 
British merchant vessels often suffered.^ On October 7, 
1799, King again presented Grenville a paper,^ summariz- 
ing forcibly both the abuses undergone by Americans, 
and the inconsistency of the British principle of inalienable 
allegiance with other British practices, which not only 
conferred citizenship upon aliens serving for a cerfaun time 
in their merchant ships, but even attributed it compulsoril}- 
to seamen settled or married in the land.^ No satisfactory 
action followed upon this remonstrance. In March, 1801, 
Grenville having resigned with Pitt, King brought the 
question before their successors, referring to the letter of 
October, 1799, as " a full explanation, requiring no further 
development on the present occasion." * At the same time, 
by authority from his Government, he made a definite 
proposal, "that neither party shall upon the high seas 
impress seamen out of the vessels of the other." The 
instructions for this action were given under the presidency 
of John Adams, John Marshall being then Secretary of 
State. On the high seas the vessels of the country 
were not under British jurisdiction for any purpose. The 
only concession of international law was that the ship 
itself could be arrested, if found by a belligerent cruiser 
under circumstances apparently in violation of belligerent 
rights, be brought within belligerent jurisdiction, and the 
facts there determined by due process of law. But in the 
practice of impressment the whole procedure, from arrest 
to trial and sentence, was transferred to the open sea ; 
therefore to allow it extended thither a British jurisdiction, 
which possessed none of the guarantees for the sifting of 

1 See, for example. Naval Chronicle, vol.xxvi. pp. 215-221, 306-309. 

2 Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, vol. iii. p. 115. 

3 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 150. 
* Ibid., p. 493. 



122 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

evidence, the application of law, or the impartiality of the 
judge, which may be presumed in regular tribunals. 

Yet, while holding clearly the absolute justice of the 
American contention, demonstrated both by the faulty 
character of the method and the outrageous injustice 
in results, let us not be blind to the actuality of the 
loss Great Britain was undergoing, nor to her estimate 
of the compensation offered for the relinquishment of 
the practice. The New England States, which furnished 
a large proportion of the maritime population, affirmed 
continually by their constituted authorities that very few 
of their seamen were known to be impressed. Governor 
Strong of Massachusetts, in a message to the Legislature, 
said, "The number of our native seamen impressed by 
British ships has been grossly exaggerated, and the number 
of British seamen employed by us has at all times been 
far greater than those of all nations who have been im- 
pressed from our vessels. If we are contending for the 
support of a claim to exempt British seamen from their 
allegiance to their owm country, is it not time to inquire 
whether our claim is just? " ^ It seems singular now that 
the fewness of the citizens hopelessly consigned to in- 
definite involuntary servitude should have materially 
affected opinion as to the degree of the outrage ; but, 
after making allowance for the spirit of faction then 
prevalent, it can be readily understood that such conditions, 
being believed by the British, must color their judgment 
as to the real extent of the injustice by which they profited. 
At New York, in 1805, Consul-General Barclay,^ who had 
then been resident for six years, in replying to a letter 
from the Mayor, said, " It is a fact, too notorious to have 
escaped your knowledge, that many of his Majesty's sub- 
jects are furnished with American protection, to which 
they have no title." This being brought to Madison's 
1 Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 343. 2 Correspondence, p. 210. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 123 

attention produced a complaint to the British Minister. 
In justifying his statements, Barchxy wrote there were 
" innumerable instances where British subjects within a 
month after their arrival in these states obtain certificates 
of citizenship." " The documents I have already fur- 
nished you prove the indiscriminate use of those certifi- 
cates." ^ Representative Gaston of North Carolina, whose 
utterances on another aspect of the question have been 
before quoted,^ said in this relation, " In the battle, I 
think of the President and the Little Belt, a neighbor 
of mine, now an industrious farmer, noticed in the number 
of the slain one of his own name. He exclaimed, ' There 
goes one of my protections.' On being asked for an ex- 
planation, he remarked that in his wild days, when he fol- 
lowed the sea, it was an ordinary mode of procuring a little 
spending money to get a protection from a notary for a 
dollar, and sell it to the first foreigner whom it at all 
fitted for fifteen or twenty." But, while believing that the 
number of impressed Americans "had been exaggerated 
infinitely beyond the truth," Gaston added, with the clear 
perceptions of patriotism, " Be they more or less, the right 
to the protection of their country is sacred and must be 
regarded." ^ 

The logic was unimpeachable which, to every argument 
based upon numbers, replied that the question was not of 
few or many, but of a system, under which American sea- 
men — one or more — were continually liable to be seized 
by an irresponsible authority, without protection or hearing 
of law, and sent to the uttermost part of the earth, beyond 
power of legal redress, or of even making known their 
situation. Yet it can be understood that the British Gov- 
ernment, painfully conscious of the deterioration of its 
fighting force by the absence of its subjects, and convinced 
of its right, concerning which no hesitation was ever by it 

1 Correspondence, p. 219. 2 Ante, p. 7. 

3 Niles' Register, vol. v. Supplement, p. 105. 



124 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

expressed, should have resolved to maintain it, distrustful 
of offers to exclude British seamen from the American 
merchant service, the efficacy of Avhich must have been 
more than doubtful to all familiar with shipping proced- 
ures in maritime ports. The protections issued to seamen 
as Ameiican citizens fell under the suspicion which in later 
days not infrequently attached to naturalization papers ; 
and, if questioned by some of our own people, it is not to 
be wondered that they seemed more than doubtful to a 
contrary interest. 

In presenting the proposition, " that neither part}^ should 
impress from the ships of the other," King had character- 
ized it as a temporary measure, " until more comprehensive 
and precise regulations can be devised to secure the respec- 
tive rights of the two countries." Nevertheless, the United 
States would doubtless have been content to rest in this, duly 
carried out, and even to waive concession of the principle, 
should it be thus voided in practice. As King from the 
first foresaw,^ acceptance by the British Cabinet would de- 
pend upon the new head of the Admiralty, Lord St. Vin- 
cent, a veteran achniral, whose reputation, and experience 
of over fifty years, would outweigh the opinions of his col- 
leagues. In reply to a private letter from one of St. Yin- 
cent's political friends, sent at King's request, the admiral 
wrote : " Mr. King is probably not aware of the abuses 
which are committed by American Consuls in France, 
Spain, and Portugal, from the generality of whom every 
Englishman, knowing him to be such, may be made an 
American for a dollar. I have known more tlian one 
American master carry off soldiers, in their regimentals, 
arms, and accoutrements, from the garrison at Gibraltar; 
and there cannot be a doubt but the American trade is 
navigated by a majority of British subjects : and a very 
considerable one too." HoM^ever inspired by prejudice, 

1 King to Thomas Erskiue. Life of King, vol. iii. p. 401. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 125 

these words iii their way echo Gaston's statements just 
quoted; while Madison in 1806 admitted that the number 
of British seamen in American merchant ships was "con- 
siderable, though probably less than supposed." 

Entertaining these impressions, the concurrence of St. 
Vincent seemed doubtful ; and in fact, through the period 
of nominal peace which soon ensued, and continued to May, 
1803, the matter dragged. When the renewal of the war 
was seen to be inevitable, King again urged a settlement, 
and the Foreign Secretary promised to sign any agree- 
ment which the admiral would approve. After confer- 
ence, King thought he had gained this desired consent, 
for a term of five years, to the American proposition. He 
drew up articles embodying it, together witli the necessary 
equivalents to be stipulated by the United States; but, 
before tliese could be submitted, he received a letter from 
St. Vincent, saying that he was of the opinion that the 
narrow seas should be expressly excepted from the opera- 
tion of the clause, " as they had been immemorially consid- 
ered to be within the dominions of Great Britain." Since 
this would give the consent of the United States to tlie 
extension of British jurisdiction far beyond the customary 
three miles from the shore, conceded by international law, 
King properly would not accept the solution, tempting as 
was the opportunity to secure immunity for Americans in 
otlier quarters from the renewed outrages that could be 
foreseen. He soon after returned to the United States, 
where his decision was of course approved ; for tliough the 
Gulf Stream appeared to Jefferson the natural limit for 
the neutral jurisdiction of America, the claim of Great 
Britain to the narrow seas was evidently a grave encroach- 
ment upon the rights of others. 

In later years Lord Castlereagh, in an interview with the 
American charge d'affaires, Jonathan Russell, assured him 
that Mr. King had misapprehended St. Vincent's meaning; 



126 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

reading, from a mass of records then before him, a letter of 
the admiral to Sir William Scott, Judge of the High Court 
of Admiralty, " asking for counsel and advice, and confess- 
ing his own perplexity and total incompetency to discover 
any practical project for the safe discontinuance of the 
practice." " You see," proceeded Lord Castlereagh, " that 
the confidence of Mr. King on this point was entirely 
unfounded." ^ 

Wherever the misunderstanding lay, matters had not 
advanced in the least towards a solution when Monroe 
reached England, in 1803, as King's successor. Up to that 
time, no tabular stiitement seems to have been prepared, 
showing the total number of seamen impressed from Amer- 
ican vessels during the first war, 1793-1801 ; nor does the 
present writer think it material to ascertain, from tlie frag- 
mentary data at hand, the exact extent of an injury to 
which the question of more or less was secondary. The 
official agent of the American Government, for the protec- 
tion of seamen, upon quitting his post in Loudon in 1802, 
wrote that he had transferred to his successor " A list of 
597 seamen, where answers have been returned to me, 
stating that, having no documents to prove their citizen- 
ship, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty could not 
consent to their discharge." Only seven cases then I'e- 
mained without replies, which shows at the least a decent 
attention to the formalities of intercourse; and King, in 
his letter of October 7, 1799, had acknowledged that the 
Secretary to the Admiralty had " given great attention to 
the numerous applications, and that a disposition has ex- 
isted to comply with our demands, when the same could 
be done consistently with the maxims and practice adopted 
and adhered to by Great Britain." The Admiralty, how- 
ever, maintained that " the admission of the principle, that 

1 Russell to the Secretary of State, Sept. 17, 1812. American State Papers, 
Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 593. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 12T 

a man declaring himself to belong to a foreign state should, 
upon that assertion merely, and without direct or very 
strong circumstantial proof, be suffered to leave the ser- 
vice, would be productive of the most dangerous conse- 
quences to his Majesty's Navy." The agent himself had 
written to the Secretary of the Admiralty, " I freely con- 
fess that I believe many of them are British subjects ; but 
I presume that all of them were impressed from American 
vessels, and by far- the greater proportion are American cit- 
izens, who, from various causes, have been deprived of their 
certificates, and who, from their peculiar situation, have 
been unable to obtain proofs from America." ^ 

When Mr. Monroe arrived in England in 1803, after 
the conclusion of the Louisiana purchase from France, 
war had just re-begun. Instructions were sent him, in 
an elaborate series of articles framed by Madison, for 
negotiating a convention to regulate those matters of dif- 
erence which experience had shown were sure to arise 
between the two countries in the progress of the hos- 
tilities. Among them, impressment was given the first 
place; but up to 1806, when Pinkney was sent as his 
associate, nothing had been effected, nor does urgency 
seem to have been felt. So long as in practice things 
ran smoothly, divergences of opinion were easily toler- 
able. Soon after the receipt of the instructions, in JMarch, 
1804,2 the comparatively friendly administration of Add- 
ington gave way to that of Pitt; and upon this had 
followed Monroe's nine-months absence in Spain. Before 
departure, however, he had written, " The negotiation has 
not failed in its great objects, . . . nor was there ever less 
cause of complaint furnished by impressment." ^ The out- 
burst of seizure upon the plea of a constructively direct 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. pp. 427, 473. 

2 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 90. 
8 Ibid., p. 98. 



128 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

trade, already mentioned, had followed, and, with the retal- 
iatory non-importation law of the United States, made the 
situation acute and menacing. Further cause for exasper- 
ation was indicated in a report from the Secretary of State, 
March 5, 1806, giving, in reply to a resolution of the 
House, a tabulated statement, by name, of 913 persons, 
who " appear to have been impressed from American ves- 
sels ; " to which was added that " the aggregate number of 
impressments into the British service since the conunence- 
ment of the present war in Europe (May, 1803) is found 
to be 2,273/' i 

Confronted by this situation of wrongs endured, by com- 
merce and by seamen, the mission of Monroe and Pinkney 
was to negotiate a comprehensive treaty of " amity, com- 
merce, and navigation," the first attempted between the 
two countries since Jay's in 1794. When Pinkney landed, 
Fox was already in the grip of the sickness from which 
he died in the following September. This circumstance 
introduced an element of delay, aggravated by the in- 
evitable hesitations of the new ministry, solicitous on 
the one hand to accommodate, but yet more anxious not 
to incense British opinion. The Prime Minister, in room 
of Mr. Fox, received the envoys on August 5, and, when 
the American demand was explained to him, defined at 
once the delicacy of the question of impressment. " On 
the subject of the impressment of our seamen, he suggested 
doubts of the practicability of devising the means of dis- 
crimination between the seamen of the two countries, 
within (as we understood him) their respective jurisdic- 
tions ; and he spoke of the importance to the safety of 
Great Britain, in the present state of the power of her 
enemy, of preserving in their utmost strength the right 
and capacity of Government to avail itself in war of the 
services of its seamen. These observations were connected 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. pp. 776-798. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 129 

with frequent professions of an earnest wish that some lib- 
eral and equitable plan should be adopted, for reconciling 
the exercise of this essential right with the just claims of 
the United States, and for removing from it all cause of 
complaint and irritation." ^ 

In consequence of Mr. Fox's continued illness two nego- 
tiators, one of whom, Lord Holland, was a near relative of 
his, were appointed to confer with the American envoys, 
and to frame an agreement, if attainable. The first formal 
meeting was on August 27, the second on September 1.^ 
As the satisfactory arrangement of the impressment dif- 
ficulty was a sine qua non to the ratification of any 
treaty, and to the repeal of the Non-Importation Act, this 
American requirement was necessarily at once submitted. 
The reply was significant, particularly because made by 
men apparently chosen for their general attitude towards 
the United States, by a ministry certainly desirous to 
conciliate, and to retain the full British advantage from the 
United States market, if compatible with the preservation 
of an interest deemed greater still. " It was soon apparent 
that they felt the strongest repugnance to a formal renun- 
ciation, or the abandonment, of their claim to take from 
our vessels on the high seas such seamen as should appear 
to be their own subjects, and they pressed upon us with 
much zeal a provision" for documentary protection to in- 
dividuals ; " but that, subject to such protections, the ships 
of war of Great Britain should continue to visit and 
impress on the main ocean as heretofore." 

In the preliminary discussions the British negotiators 
presented the aspect of the case as it appeared to them 
and to their public. They " observed that they supposed 
the object of our plan to be to prevent the impressment at 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 131. Author's 
italics. 

2 For the American report of these interviews, see Ibid., pp. 133-135. 

VOL. I. — 9 



130 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

sea of American seamen, and not to withdraw British sea- 
men from the naval service of their country in times of 
great national peril, for the purpose of employing them 
ourselves ; that the first of these purposes would be effectu- 
ally accomplished by a system which should introduce and 
establish a clear and conclusive distinction between the 
seamen of the two countries, which on all occasions would 
be implicitly respected; that if they should consent to 
make our commercial navy a floating asylum for all the 
British seamen who, tempted by higher wages, should quit 
their service for ours, the effect of such a concession upon 
their maritime strength, on which Great Britain depended, 
not only for her prosperity but for her safety, might be 
fatal; that on the most alarming emergency they might 
be deprived, to an extent impossible to calculate, of their 
only means of security ; that our vessels might become re- 
ceptacles for deserters to any amount, and when once at 
sea might set at defiance the just claims of the service to 
which such deserters belonged; that, even within the 
United States, it could not be expected that any plan for 
recovering British deserters could be efficacious ; and that, 
moreover, the plan we proposed was inadequate in its range 
and object, inasmuch as it was merely prospective, confined 
wholly to deserters, and in no respect provided for the case 
of the vast body of British seamen noiv employed in our 
trade to every part of the world." 

To these representations, which had a strong basis in 
fact and reason, if once the British principle was conceded, 
the American negotiators replied in detail as best they 
could. In such detail, the weight of argument and of 
probability appears to the writer to rest with the British 
case ; but there is no adequate reply to the final American 
assertion, which sums up the whole controversy, " that im- 
pressment upon the high seas by those to whom that service 
is necessarily confided must under any conceivable guards 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 131 

be frequently abused ; " such abuse being the miprisonment 
without trial of American citizens, as "a pressed man," for 
an indefinite period. Lord Cochrane, a British naval officer 
of rare distinction, stated in the House of Commons a few 
years later that " the duration of the term of service in his 
Majesty's Navy is absolutely without limitation." ^ 

The American envoys were prevented by their instruc- 
tions from conceding this point, and from signing a treaty 
without some satisfactory arrangement. Meantime, im- 
pressed by the conciliatoriness of the British representatives, 
and doubtless in measure by the evident seriousness of the 
difficulty experienced by the British Government, they 
wrote home advising that the date for the Non-Importation 
Act going into operation, now close at hand, should be 
postponed ; and, in accordance with a recommendation from 
the President, the measure was suspended by Congress, 
with a provision for further prolongation in the discretion 
of the Executive. On September 13 Fox died, an event 
which introduced further delays, esteemed not unreason- 
able by Monroe and Pinkney. Their next letter home, 
however, November 11,^ while reporting the resumption 
of the negotiation, announced also its failure by a dead- 
lock on this principal subject of impressment : " We have 
said everything that we could in support of our claim, 
that the flag should protect the crew, which we have 
contended was founded in unquestionable right. . . . This 
right was denied by the British commissioners, who asserted 
that of their Government to seize its subjects on board 
neutral vessels on the high seas, and also urged that the 
relinquishment of it at this time would go far to the over- 
throw of their naval power, on which the safety of the 
state essentially depended." In support of the abstract 
right was quoted the report from a law officer of the 

1 Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxvi. p. 1103. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 137-140. 



132 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Crown, which "justified the pretension by stating that 
the King had a right, by his prerogative, to require the 
services of all his seafaring subjects against the enemy, and 
to seize them by force wherever found, not being within 
the territorial limits of another Power; that as the high 
seas were extra-territorial, the merchant vessels of other 
Powers navigating on them were not admitted to possess 
such a jurisdiction as to protect British subjects from the 
exercise of the King's prerogative over them." 

This was a final and absolute rejection of Madison's doc- 
trine, that merchant vessels on the high seas were under 
the jurisdiction only of their own country. Asserted right 
was arrayed directly and unequivocally against asserted 
right. Negotiation on that subject was closed, and to 
diplomacy was left no further resort, save arms, or submis- 
sion to continued injury and insult. The British com- 
missioners did indeed submit a project,^ in place of that of 
the United States, rejected by their Government. By this 
it was provided that thereafter the captain of a cruiser 
who should impress an American citizen should be liable 
to heavy penalties, to be enacted by law ; but as the pre- 
amble to this proposition read, " Whereas it is not lawful 
for a belligerent to impress or carry off, from on board a 
neutral, seafaring persons ivho are not the subjects of the 
belligerent,^'' there was admitted implicitly the right to im- 
press those who were such subjects, the precise point at 
issue. The Americans therefore pronounced it wholly in- 
admissible, and repeated that no project could be adopted 
•" which did not allow our ships to protect their crews." 

The provision made indispensable by the United States 
having thus failed of adoption, the question arose whether 
the negotiation should cease. The British expressed an 
earnest desire that it should not, and as a means thereto 
^communicated the most positive assurances from their 

1 Americau State Papers, Foreigu Relations, vol. iii. p. 140. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 133 

Government that " instructions have been given, and will 
be repeated and enforced, for the observance of the 
greatest caution in the impressing of British seamen ; that 
the strictest care shall be taken to preserve the citizens 
of the United States from molestation or injury ; and that 
prompt redress shall be afforded upon any representation 
of injury." ^ To this assurance the American commis- 
sioners attached more value as a safeguard for the future 
than past experience warranted ; but in London they were 
able to feel, more accurately than an official in Washington, 
the extent and complexity of the British problem, both in 
actual fact and in public feeling. They knew, too, the 
anxious wish of the President for an accommodation on 
other matters ; so they decided to proceed with their dis- 
cussions, having first explicitly stated that they were acting 
on their own judgment.^ Consequently, whatever instru- 
ment might result from their joint labors would be liable 
to rejection at home, because of the failure of the impress- 
ment demand. 

The discussions thus renewed terminated in a treaty 
of amity, commerce, and navigation, signed by the four 
negotiators, December 31, 1806. Into the details of this 
instrument it is unnecessary to go, as it never became 
operative. Jefferson persisted in refusing approval to any 
formal convention which did not provide the required 
stipulation against impressment. He was dissatisfied also 
with particular details connected wdth the other arrange- 
ments. All these matters were set forth at great length 
in a letter 3 of May 20, 1807, from Mr. Madison to the 
American commissioners ; in which they were instructed 
to reopen negotiations on the basis of the treaty submitted, 
endeavoring to effect the changes specified. The danger 
to Great Britain from American commercial restriction was 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 140. 

2 Ibid., p. 139. 

8 Ibid., pp. 166-173. 



134 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

fully expounded, as an argument to compel compliance 
with the demands; the whole concluding with the char- 
acteristic remark that, " as long as negotiation can be hon- 
orably protracted, it is a resource to be preferred, under 
existing circumstances, to the peremptory alternative of 
improper concessions or inevitable collisions." In other 
words, the United States Government did not mean to 
fight, and that was all Great Britain needed to know. 
That she Avould suffer from the closure of the American 
market was indisputable ; but, being assured of transatlantic 
peace, there were other circumstances of high import, 
political as well as commercial, which rendered yielding 
more inexpedient to her than a commercial war. 

At the end of March, 1807, within three months of the 
sio-nature at London, the British Ministry fell, and the 
disciples of Pitt returned to power. Mr. Canning became 
Foreign Secretary. Circumstances were then changing 
rapidly on the continent of Europe, and by the time 
Madison's letter reached England a very serious event 
had modified also the relations of the United States to 
Great Britain. This was the attack upon the United 
States frigate " Chesapeake" by a British ship of war, upon 
the high seas, and the removal of four of her crew, claimed 
as deserters from the British Navy. Unofficial information 
of this transaction reached England July 25, just one day 
after Monroe and Pinkney had addressed to Canning a 
letter communicating their instructions to reopen negotia- 
tions, and stating the changes deemed desirable in the 
ti"eaty submitted. The intervention of the " Chesapeake " 
affair, to a contingent adjustment of which all other mat- 
ters had been postponed, delayed to October 22 the reply 
of tlie British Minister.^ In this, after a preamble of " dis- 
tinct protest against a practice, altogether unusual in the 
political transactions of states, by which the American 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 198. 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 135 

Government assumes to itself the privilege of revising and 
altering agreements concluded and signed on its behalf by 
its agents duly authorized for that purpose," Canning thus 
announced the decision of the Cabinet : " The proposal of 
the President of the United States for proceeding to nego- 
tiate anew, upon the basis of a treaty already solemnly 
concluded and signed, is a proposal wholly inadmissible. 
And his Majesty has therefore no option, under the present 
circumstances of this transaction, but to acquiesce in the 
refusal of the President of the United States to ratify the 
treaty signed on December 31, 1806." The settlement 
of the " Chesapeake " business having already been trans- 
ferred to Washington, by the appointment of a special British 
envoy, this rejection of further consideration of the treaty 
closed all matters pending between the two governments, 
except those appertaining to the usual duties of a legation, 
and Monroe's mission ended. A fortnight later he sailed 
for the United States. His place as regularly accredited 
Minister to the British Court was taken by Pinkney, 
through whom were conducted the subsequent important 
discussions, which arose from the marked extension given 
immediately afterwards by France and Great Britain to 
their several policies for the forcible restriction of neutral 
trade. 

Those who have followed the course of the successive 
events traced in this chapter, and marked their accelerat- 
ing momentum, will be prepared for the more extreme and 
startling occurrences which soon after ensued as a matter 
of inevitable development. They will be able also to 
understand how naturally the phrase, " Free Trade and 
Sailors' Rights," grew out of these various transactions, 
as the expression of the demands and grievances which 
finally drove the United States into hostilities ; and wiU 
comprehend in what sense these terms were used, and what 
the wrongs against which they severally protested. " Free 



13G ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Trade " had no relation of opposition to a system of pro- 
tection to home industries, an idea hardly as yet formulated 
to consciousness, except by a few advanced economists. It 
meant the trade of a nation carried on according to its own 
free will, relieved from fetters forcibly imposed by a foreign 
yoke, in which, under the circumstances of the time, the 
resurrection of colonial bondage was fairly to be discerned. 
" Sailors' Rights " expressed not only the right of the 
American seaman to personal liberty of action, — in theory 
not contested, but in practice continually violated by the 
British, — but the right of all seamen under the American 
flag to its protection in the voluntary engagements which 
they were then fulfilling. It voiced the sufferings of the 
individual ; the personal side of an injury, the reverse of 
which was the disgrace of the nation responsible for his 
security. 

It was afterwards charged against the administrations of 
Jefferson and Madison, under which these events ran their 
course to their culmination in war, that impressment was 
not a cause of the break between the two countries, but 
was adduced subsequently to swell the array of injuries, 
in which the later Orders in Council were the real deter- 
minative factor. The drift of this argument was, that the 
Repeal of the Orders, made almost simultaneously with the 
American Declaration of War, and known in the United 
States two months later, should have terminated hostilities. 
The British Government, in an elaborate vindication of its 
general course, published in January, 1813, stated that, "in 
a manifesto, accompanying their declaration of hostilities, 
in addition to the former complaints against the Orders in 
Council, a long list of grievances was brought forward ; 
but none of them such as were ever before alleged by the 
American Government to be grounds for war." In America 
itself similar allegations were made by the party in oppo- 
sition. The Maryland House of Delegates, in January, 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 137 

1814, adopted a memorial, in which it was said that "The 
claim of impressment, which has been so much exaggerated, 
but which was never deemed of itself a substantive cause 
of war, has been heretofore considered susceptible of satis- 
factory arrangement in the judgment of both the commis- 
sioners, who were selected by the President then in office 
to conduct the negotiation with the English ministry in 
the year 1806." ^ The words of the commissioners in 
their official letters of November 11, 1806,^ and April 
22, 1807,3 certainly sustain this statement as to their 
opinion, which was again deliberately affirmed by Monroe in 
a justificatory review of their course, addressed to Madison 
in February, 1808,* after his return. Gaston, speaking in 
the House in February, 1814, said: "Sir, the question 
of seamen was not a cause of this war. More than five 
years had passed over since an arrangement on this ques- 
tion, perfectly satisfactory to our ministers, [Monroe and 
Pinkney] had been made with Great Britain ; but it 
pleased not the President, and was rejected. Yet, during 
the whole period that afterwards elapsed until the declara- 
tion of war, no second effort was made to adjust this cause 
of controversy.*' ^ 

Gaston here is slightly in error as to fact, for the attack 
upon the " Chesapeake " was made by the Government the 
occasion for again demanding an abandonment of the 
practice of impressment from American merchant ships ; 
but, accepting the statements otherwise, nothing more 
could be required of the AdminiwStration, so far as words 
went, than its insistence upon this relinquishment as a 
sine qua non to any treaty. Its instructions to its minis- 
ters in 1806 had placed this demand first, not only in order, 

1 Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 377. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 139. 

3 Ibid., p. 161. 
* Ibid., p. 173. 

^ Niles' Register, vol. v. Supplement, p. 102. 



138 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

but in importance, coupling with it as indispensable only- 
one other condition, the freedom of trade; the later and 
more extreme infringements of which were constituted by 
the Orders in Council of 1807. After protracted discussion, 
the American requirement as to impressment had been 
refused by Great Britain, deliberately, distinctly, and in 
the most positive manner ; nor does it seem possible to 
concur with the opinion of our envoys that the stipula- 
tions offered by her representatives, while not sacrificing 
the British principle, did substantially and in practice 
secure the American demands. These could be satisfac- 
torily covered only by the terms laid down by the Admin- 
istration. Thereafter, any renewal of the subject must 
come from the other side ; it was inconsistent with self- 
respect for the United States again to ask it, unless with 
arms in her hands. To make further advances in words 
would have been, not to negotiate, but to entreat. This, in 
substance, was the reply of the Government to its accusers 
at home, and it is irrefutable. 

It is less easy — rather, it is impossible — to justify 
the Administration for refraining from adequate deeds, 
when the impotence of words had been fully and finally 
proved. In part, this was due to miscalculation, in itself 
difficult to pardon, from the somewhat sordid grounds and 
estimates of national feeling upon which it proceeded. 
The two successive presidents, and the party behind them, 
were satisfied that Great Britain, thouoh standinsr avow- 
edly and evidently upon grounds considered by her es- 
sential to national honor and national safety, could be 
compelled to yield by the menace of commercial embar- 
rassment. That there was lacking in them the elevated 
instinct, which could recognize that they were in collision 
with something greater than a question of pecuniary pro- 
fits, is in itself a condemnation ; and their statesmanship 
was at fault in not appreciating that the enslaved condi- 



FROM JAY'S TREATY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL 139 

tions of the European continent had justly aroused in 
Great Britain an exaltiition of spirit, wliich was prepared 
to undergo every extreme, in resistance to a like subjec- 
tion, till exhaustion itself should cause her weapons to 
drop from her hands. 

The resentment of the United States Government for 
the injuries done its people was righteous and proper. It 
was open to it to bear them under adequate protest, 
sympathizing with the evident embarrassments of the old 
cradle of the race ; or, on the other hand, to do as she was 
doing, strain every nerve to compel the cessation of out- 
rage. The Administration preferred to persist in its mili- 
tary and naval economies, putting forth but one-half of its 
power, by measures of mere commercial restriction. These 
impoverished its own people, and divided national senti- 
ment, but proved incapable within reasonable time to re- 
duce the resolution of the opponent. That that finally 
gave way when war was clearly imminent proves, not that 
commercial restriction alone was sufticient, but that coupled 
with military readiness it would have attained its end more 
surely, and sooner ; consequently with less of national suf- 
fering, and no national ignominy. 

Entire conviction of the justice and urgency of the 
American contentions, especially in the matter of impress- 
ment, and only to a less degree in that of the regulation of 
trade by foreign force, as impeaching national independ- 
ence, is not enough to induce admiration for the course of 
American statesmanship at this time. The acuteness and 
technical accuracy of Madison's voluminous arguments 
make but more impressive the narrowTiess of outlook, 
which saw only the American point of view, and recog- 
nized only the force of legal precedent, at a time when the 
foundations of the civilized world were heaving. Ameri- 
can interests doubtless were his sole concern ; but what 
was practicable and necessary to support those interests 



140 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

depended upon a wide consideration and just appreciation 
of external conditions. That laws are silent amid the 
clash of arms, seems in his apprehension transformed to 
the conviction that at no time are they more noisy and 
compulsive. Upon this political obtuseness there fell a 
kind of poetical retribution, which gradually worked the 
Administration round to the position of substantially sup- 
porting Napoleon, when putting forth all his power to 
oppress the liberties of Spain, and of embarrassing Great 
Britain at the time when a people in insurrection against 
perfidy and outrage found in her their sole support. During 
these eventful five years, the history of which we are yet 
to trace, the bearing of successive British ministries towards 
the United States was usually uncompromising, often arro- 
gant, sometimes insolent, hard even now to read with 
composure ; but in the imminent danger of their country, 
during a period of complicated emergencies, they held, 
with cool heads, and with steady hands on the helm, a 
course taken in full understanding of world conditions, and 
with a substantially just forecast of the future. Among 
their presuppositions, in the period next to be treated, was 
that America might argue and threaten, but would not 
fight. There was here no miscalculation, for she did not 
fight till too late, and slie fought wholly unprepared. 



CHAPTER IV 

FEOM THE OKDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 
1807-1812 

WHEN the treaty of December 31, 1806, was 
about to be signed, the British negotiators 
delivered to the Americans a paper, of the 
general character of which they had been 
forewarned, but which in precise terms then first came 
before them. Its origin was due to a pronouncement of 
the French Emperor, historically known as the Decree of 
Berlin, which was dated November 21, while the negotia- 
tions were in progress, but had become fully known only 
when they had reached a very advanced stage. The pre- 
tensions and policy set forth in the Decree were considered 
by the British Government to violate the rights of neutrals, 
with a specific and far-reaching purpose of thereby injur- 
ing Great Britain. It was claimed that acquiescence in 
such violations by the neutral, or submission to them, 
would be a concurrence in the hostile object of the enemy ; 
in which case Great Britain might feel compelled to adopt 
measures retaliatory against France, through the same 
medium of neutral navigation. In such steps she might 
be fettered, should the present treaty take effect. In 
final ratification, therefore, the British Government would 
be guided by the action of the United States upon the 
Berlin Decree. Unless the Emperor abandoned his policy, 
or "the United States by its conduct or assurances will 
have given security to his Majesty that it will not sub- 
mit to such innovations on the established system of 
maritime law, ... his Majesty will not consider him- 



142 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

self bound by the present signature of his commissioners 
to ratify the treaty, or precluded from adopting such 
measures as may seem necessary for counteracting the 
designs of his enemy." ^ The American representatives 
transmitted this paper to Washington, with the simple 
observation that "we do not consider ourselves a party 
to it, or as having given it in any the slightest degree our 
sanction." 2 

The Berlin Decree was remarkable not only in scope 
and spirit, but in form. "It had excited in us appre- 
hensions," wrote Madison to the United States minister 
in Paris, "which were repressed only by the inartic- 
ulate import of its articles, and the presumption that it 
would be executed in a sense not inconsistent with the 
respect due to the treaty between France and the United 
States." It bore, in fact, the impress of its author's mind, 
which, however replete with knowledge concerning con- 
ventional international law, defined in accordance with the 
momentary and often hasty impulses of his own will, and 
consequently often also with the obscurity attendant upon 
ill-digested ideas. The preamble recited various practices 
of Great Britain as subversive of international right; most 
of which were not so, but in accordance with long-stand- 
ing usage and general prescription. The methods of 
blockade instituted by her were more exceptionable, and 
were given prominence, with evident reference to the 
Order of May 16, declaring the blockade of a long coast- 
line. It being evident, so ran the Emperor's reasoning, 
that the object of this abuse of blockade was to inter- 
rupt neutral commerce in favor of British, it followed 
that "whoever deals on the Continent in English mer- 
chandise favors that design, and becomes an accomplice." 
He therefore decreed, as a measure of just retaliation. 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 152. 

2 Ibid., p. 147. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 143 

" that the British Islands were thenceforward in a state of 
blockade ; that all correspondence and commerce with them 
was prohibited ; that trade in English merchandise was for- 
bidden; and that all merchandise belonging to England, 
or " (even if neutral property) " proceeding from its manu- 
factories and colonies, is lawful prize." No vessel com- 
ing directly from British dominions should be received 
in anj^ port to which the Decree was applicable. The 
scope of its intended application was shown in the con- 
cluding command, that it should be communicated "to 
the Kings of Spain, of Naples, of Holland, of Etruria, 
and to our allies, whose subjects, like ours, are the victims 
of the injustice and barbarism of the English maritime 
laws."i 

The phrasing of the edict was ambiguous, as Madison 
indicated. Notably, while neutral vessels having on board 
merchandise neutral in property, but British in origin, were 
to be seized when voluntarily entering a French port, it was 
not clear whether they were for the same reason to be ar- 
rested when found on the high seas; and there was equal 
failure to specify whether the proclaimed blockade author- 
ized the capture of neutrals merely because bound to the 
British Isles, as was lawful if destined to a seaport effec- 
tively blockaded. Again, some of the proposed measures, 
such as refusal of admission to vessels or merchandise com- 
ing to French ports from British, were matters of purely local 
concern and municipal regulation; whereas the seizure of 
neutral property, because of English manufacture, was at 
least of doubtful right, if exercised within municipal lim- 
its, and certainly unlawful, if effected on the high seas. 
Whether such application was intended could not cer- 
tainly be inferred from the text. The genius of the 
measure, as a whole, its inspiring motive and purpose, 
was revealed in the closing words of the preamble : 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Kelations, vol. iii. p. 290. 



144 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

"This decree shall be considered as the fundamental 
law of the Empire, until England has acknowledged 
that the rights of war are the same on land and on sea; 
that it [war] cannot be extended to any private property 
whatever ; nor to persons who are not military ; and until 
the right of blockade be restrained to fortified places, 
actually invested by competent forces." These words 
struck directly at measures of war resting upon long- 
standing usage, in which the strength of a maritime 
state such as Great Britain was vitally implicated. 

The claim for private property possesses particular in- 
terest; for it involves a play upon words to the confusion 
of ideas, which from that time to this has vitiated the 
arguments upon which have been based a prominent fea- 
ture of American policy. Private property at a standstill 
is one thing. It is the unproductive money in a stocking, 
hid in a closet. Pi-operty belonging to private individuals, 
but embarked in that process of transportation and ex- 
change which we call commerce, is like money in circula- 
tion. It is the life-blood of national prosperity, upon 
which war depends ; and as such is national in its employ- 
ment, and only in ownership private. To stop such circu- 
lation is to sap national prosperity ; and to sap prosperity, 
upon which war depends for its energy, is a measure as 
truly military as is killing the men whose arms maintain 
war in the field. Prohibition of commerce is enforced at 
will where an enemy's army holds a territory; if permitted, 
it is because it inures to the benefit of the conqueror, or 
at least from its restricted scope does not injure him. It 
will not be doubted that, should a prohibition on shore be 
disregarded, the offending property would be seized in 
punishment. The sea is the great scene of commerce. 
The property transported back and forth, circulating from 
state to state in exchanges, is one of the greatest factors 
in national wealth. The maritime nations have been, and 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 145 

are, the wealthy nations. To prohibit such commerce to 
an enemy is, and historically has been, a tremendous blow- 
to his fighting power; never more conspicuously so than 
in the Napoleonic wars. But prohibition is a vain show, 
in war as it is in civil government, if not enforced by pen- 
alties ; and the natural penalty against offending property 
is fine, extending even to confiscation in extreme cases. 
The seizure of enemy's merchant ships and goods, for 
violating the prohibition against their engaging in com- 
merce, is what is commonly called the seizure of private 
property. Under the methods of the last two centuries, it 
has been in administration a process as regular, legally, as 
is libelling a ship for an action in damages; nor does it 
differ from it in principle. The point at issue really is not, 
" Is the property private ? " but, " Is the method conducive 
to the purposes of war?" Property strictly private, on 
board ship, but not in process of commercial exchange, is 
for this reason never touched ; and to do so is considered 
as disgraceful as a common theft. 

Napoleon, as a ruler, was always poverty-stricken. 
For that reason he levied heavy contributions on con- 
quered states, which it is needless to say were paid by 
private taxpayers; and for the same reason, by calling 
French ships and French goods "private property," he 
would compel for them the freedom of the sea, which 
the maritime preponderance of Great Britain denied them. 
He needed the revenue that commerce would bring in. 
So as to blockades. In denying the right to capture 
under a nominal blockade, unsupported by an effective 
force, he took the ground which the common-sense of 
nations had long before embodied in the common consent 
called international law. But he went farther. Blockade 
is very inconvenient to the blockaded, which was the r6le 
played by France. Along with the claim for "private 
property," he formulated the proposition that the right of 

YOL. I. — 10 



146 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

blockade is restrained to fortified places; to which was 
afterwards added the corollary that the place must be in- 
vested by land as well as by sea. It is to be noticed that 
here also American policy showed a disposition to go 
astray, by denying the legitimacy of a purely commercial 
blockade ; a tendency natural enough at that passing mo- 
ment, when, as a weak nation, it was desired to restrict 
the rights of belligerents, but which in its results on the 
subsequent history of the country would have been ruin- 
ous. John Marshall, one of the greatest names in Ameri- 
can jurisprudence, when Secretary of State in 1800, wrote 
to the minister in London: 

On principle it might well be questioned whether this rule 
[of blockade] can be applied to a place not completely invested, 
by land as well as by sea. If we examine the reasoning on 
which is founded the right to intercept and confiscate supplies 
designed for a blockaded town, it will be difficult to resist the 
conviction that its extension to towns invested by sea only is 
an unjustifiable encroachment on the rights of neutrals. But 
it is not of this departure from principle (a departure which 
has received some sanction from practice) that we mean to 
complain. ^ 

In 1810, the then Secretary of State enclosed to the 
American minister in London the letter from which this 
extract is taken, among other proofs of the positions main- 
tained by the United States on the subject of blockade. 
The particular claim cited was not directly indorsed ; but 
as its mention was unnecessary to the matter immediately 
in hand, we may safely regard its retention as indicative 
of the ideal of the Secretary, and of the President, Mr. 
Madison. In consequence, we find the minister, William 
Pinkney, in his letter of January 14, 1811, adducing 
Marshall's view to the British Foreign Secretary: 

1 American State Papers, Foreign delations, vol. ii. p. 488. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 147 

It is by no means clear that it may not fairly be contended, 
on principle and early usage,. that a maritime blockade is in- 
complete, with regard to States at peace, ^ unless the place 
which it would affect is invested by land, as well as by sea. 
The United States, however, have called for the recognition of 
no such rule. They appear to have contented themselves, etc.'- 

The error into which both these eminent statesmen fell 
is military in character, and proceeds from the same source 
as the agitation in favor of exempting so-called private 
property from capture. Both spring from the failure to 
recognize a function of the sea, vital to the maintenance 
of war by states which depend upon maritime commerce. 
To forbid the free use of the seas to enemy's merchant 
ships and material of commerce, differs in no wise in j)rin- 
ciple from shutting his ports to neutral vessels, as well as 
to his own, by blockade. Both are aimed at the enemy's 
sources of supply, at his communications ; and the penalty 
inflicted by the laws of war in both cases is the same, — 
forfeiture of the offending property. With clear recogni- 
tion of this military principle involved, and of the impor- 
tance of sustaining it by Great Britain, British high oflicials 
repeatedly declared that the Berlin Decree was to be re- 
garded, not chiefly in its methods, but in its object, or 
principle, which was to deprive Great Britain of her prin- 
cipal weapon. This purpose stood avowed in the words, 
" this decree shall be considered the fundamental law of the 
Empire until England has acknowledged," etc. British 
statesmen correctly paraphrased this, "has renounced the 
established foundations, admitted by all civilized nations, 
of her maritime rights and interests, upon which depend 
the most valuable rights and interests of the nation." ^ 

1 That is, as restrictive of neutral shipping. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 410. 

3 Wellesley, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Pinkney, Dec. 29, 1810; also, 
Feb. 11, 1811. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 409, 
412. See also Sir Wm. Scott, in the Court of Admiralty, Ibid., p. 421. 



148 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

The British authorities understood that, by relinquishing 
these rights, they would abandon in great measure the 
control of the sea, so far as useful to war. The United 
States have received their lesson in history. If the prin- 
ciple contended for by their representatives, Marshall and 
Pinkney, had been established as international law before 
1861, there could have been no blockade of the Southern 
coast in the Civil War. The cotton of the Confederacy, 
innocent " private property," could have gone freely; the 
returns from it would have entered unimpeded; commerce, 
the source of national wealth, would have flourished in full 
vigor; supplies, except contraband, would have flowed un- 
molested ; and all this at the price merely of killing some 
hundred thousands more men, with proportionate expendi- 
ture of money, in the effort to maintain the Union, which 
would probably have failed, to the immeasurable loss of 
both sections. 

The British Government took some time to analyze the 
"inarticulate import" of the Berlin Decree. Hence, in 
the paper presented to Monroe and Pinkney, stress was 
laid upon the methods only, ignoring the object of com- 
pelling Great Britain to surrender her maritime rights. 
In the methods, however, instinct divined the true char- 
acter of the plotted evil. There was to be formed, under 
military pressure, a vast political combination of states 
pledged to exclude British commerce from the markets of 
the Continent; a design which in execution received the 
name of the Continental System, The Decree being issued 
after the battle of Jena, upon the eve of the evident com- 
plete subjugation of Prussia, following that of Austria the 
year before, there was room to fear that the predominance 
of Napoleon on the Continent would compel in Europe 
universal compliance with these measures of exclusion. It 
so proved, in fact, in the course of 1807, leading to a com- 
mercial warfare of extraordinary rigor, the effects of which 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR I49 

upon Europe have been discussed by the author in a previ- 
ous work.i Its influence upon tlie United States is now to 
be considered ; for it was a prominent factor in the causes 
of the War of 1812. 

Although in a military sense weak to debility, and polit- 
ically not welded as yet into a nation, strong in a com- 
mon spirit and accepted traditions, the United States was 
alread}'- in two respects a force to be considered. She pos- 
sessed an extensive shipping, second in tonnage only to 
that of the British Islands, to which it was a dangerous 
rival in maintaining the commercial intercourse of Europe ; 
while her population and purchasing power were so in- 
creased as to constitute her a very valuable market, manu- 
facturing for which was chiefly in the hands of Great 
Britain. It became, therefore, an object with Napoleon, 
in prosecution of the design of the Berlin Decree, to draw 
the United States into co-operation with the European 
continental system, by shutting her ports to Great Britain ; 
while the latter, confronted by this double danger, sought 
to impose upon neutral navigation — almost wholly Ameri- 
can — such curtailment as should punish the Emperor and 
his tributaries for their measures of exclusion, and also 
neutralize the effect of these by forcing the British Islands 
into the chain of communication by which Europe in gen- 
eral was supplied. To retaliate the Berlin Decree upon 
the enemy, and by the same means to nourish the trade of 
Great Britain, was the avowed twofold object. The ship- 
ping of the United States found itself between hammer 
and anvil, crushed by these opposing policies. Napoleon 
banned it from continental harbors, if coming from Eng- 
land or freighted with English goods; Great Britain for- 
bade it going to a continental port, unless it had first 
touched at one of hers; and both inflicted penalties of 

1 Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 
chaps, xvii., xviii. 



150 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

confiscation, when able to lay hands on a vessel which had 
violated their respective commands. 

The lack of precision in the terms of the Berlin Decree 
exposed it from the first to much latitude of interpreta- 
tion; and the Emperor remaining absent from France for 
eight months after its promulgation, preoccupied with an 
arduous warfare in Eastern Europe, the construction of 
the edict by the authorities in Paris made little alteration 
in existing conditions. Nevertheless, the impulse to re- 
taliate prevailed; and the British ministry with which 
Monroe and Pinkney had negotiated, though compara- 
tively liberal in political complexion, would not wait for 
more precise knowledge. The occasion was seized with a 
precipitancy which lent color to Napoleon's assertion, that 
the leading aim was to favor their own trade by depressing 
that of others. This had already been acknowledged as 
the motive for interrupting American traffic in West 
India produce. Now again, one week only after stating 
to Monroe and Pinkney that they " could not believe that 
the enemy will ever seriously attempt to enforce such a 
system," and without waiting to ascertain whether neutral 
nations, the United States in particular, would, "contrary 
to all expectations, acquiesce in such usurpations, " ^ the 
Government on January 7, 1807, with no information 
as to the practical effect given to the Decree in opera- 
tion, issued an Order in Council, which struck Americans 
directly and chiefly. Neutrals were forbidden to sail from 
one port to another, both of which were so far under the 
•control of France or her allies that British vessels might 
not freely trade thereat. This was aimed immediately 
at trade along the coast of Europe, bat it included, of 
course, the voyages from a hostile colony to a hostile Euro- 
pean port already interdicted by British rulings, of which 

1 Declaration of the King's reservations, Dec. 31, 1806. American State 
Papers, vol. iii. p. 1.52. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 151 

the new Order was simply an extension. It fell with par- 
ticular severity on Americans, accustomed to go from port 
to port, not carrying on local coasting, but seeking mar- 
kets for their outward cargoes, or making up a home- 
ward lading. It is true that the Cabinet by which the 
Order was issued did not intend to forbid this particu- 
lar procedure; but the wording naturally implied such 
prohibition, and was so construed by Madison, ^ who com- 
municated his understanding to the British minister at 
Washington. Before this letter could reach London, the 
ministry changed, and the new Government refrained from 
correcting the misapprehension. For this it was taken to 
task in Parliament, by Lords Holland and Grenville.^ 

Monroe had once written to the British Foreign Secre- 
tary that " it cannot well be conceived how it should be 
lawful to carry on commerce from one port to another of 
the parent country, and not from its colonies to the mother 
country. "2 This well meant argument, in favor of open- 
ing the colonial trade, gave to the new step of the British 
Cabinet a somewhat gratuitous indorsement of logical con- 
sistency. A consciousness of this may have underlain the 
remarkable terms in which this grievous restriction was 
imparted to the United States Government, as evincing 
the singular indulgence of Great Britain. Her minister 
in Washington, in conveying the Order to the State De- 
partment, wrote: "His Majesty, with that forbearance and 
moderation which have at all times distmguished his con- 
duct, has determined for the present to confine himself to 
exercising his decided naval superiority in such a manner 
only as is authorized by the acknowledged principles of 
the laws of nations, and has issued an Order for prevent- 
ing all commerce from port to port of his enemies ; com- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 159. 

2 Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. x. p. 1274. 

3 Aug. 12, ISO."). American State Papers, Foreign Eelations, vol. iii. p. 104. 



152 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

preliendicg in this Order not only the ports of France, but 
those of other nations, as, either in alliance with France, 
or subject to her dominion, have, by measures of active 
offence or by the exclusion of British ships, taken part in 
the present war. " 1 These words characterized the measure 
as strictly retaliatory. They implied that the extra-legal 
action of the enemy would warrant extra-legal action by 
Great Britain, but asserted expressly that the present 
step was sanctioned by existing law, — " in such a man- 
ner only as is authorized by the acknowledged principles 
of the law of nations." The prohibition of coasting 
trade could be brought under the law of nations only 
by invoking the Rule of 1756, forbidding neutrals to 
undertake for a state at war employment denied to them 
in peace. Of this, coasting was a precise instance; but 
to call the Rule an acknowledged principle of the law 
of nations was an assumption peculiarly calculated to 
irritate Madison, who had expended reams in refutation. 
He penned two careful replies, logical, incisive, and show- 
ing the profound knowledge of the subject which distin- 
guished him; but in a time of political convulsion he 
contended in vain against men who wore swords and 
thought their country's existence imj^erilled. 

The United States authorities argued by text and prec- 
edent. To the end they persisted in shutting their eyes to 
the important fact, recognized intuitively by Great Britain, 
that the Berlin Decree was no isolated measure, to be dis- 
cussed on its separate merits, but an incident in an unprec- 
edented political combination, already sufficiently defined 
in tendency, which overturned the traditional system of 
Europe. It destroyed the checks inherent in the balance of 
power, concentrating the whole in the hands of Napoleon, 
to whom there remained on the Continent only one valid 
counterweight, the Emperor of Russia, whom he soon 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 158. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR I53 

after contrived to lead into his scheme of policy. The 
balance of power was thus reduced to the opposing 
scales of Great Britain and France, and for five years so 
remained. The Continental System, embracing all the 
rest of Europe, was arrayed against Great Britain, and 
might well look to destroy her, if it could command the 
support of the United States. Founded upon armed 
power, it proposed by continuous exertion of the same 
means to undermine the bases of British prosperity, and 
so to subvert the British Empire. The enterprise was 
distinctly military, and could be met only by measures of 
a similar character, to which existing international law 
was unequal. The corner-stone was the military power of 
Napoleon, which, by nullifying the independence of the 
continental states, compelled them to adopt the methods 
of the Berlin Decree contrary to their will, and contrary 
to the wishes, the interests, and the bare well-being of 
their populations. "You will see," wrote an observant 
American representative abroad, " that Napoleon stalks at 
a gigantic stride among the pygmy monarchs of Europe, 
and bends them to his policy. It is even an equal chance 
if Russia, after all her blustering, does not accede to his 
demands without striking a blow." ^ To meet the danger 
Great Britain opposed a maritime dominion, equally exclu- 
sive, equally founded on force, and exercised in equally 
arbitrary fashion over the populations of the sea. 

At the end of March, 1807, the British Cabinet with 
which Monroe and Pinkney had negotiated went out of 
office. Their successors came in prepared for extreme 
action in consequence of the Berlin Decree; but their 
hand was for the moment stayed, because its enforcement 
remained in abeyance, owing to the Emperor's continued 
absence in the field. Towards the claims of the United 

1 Jonathan Russell to the Secretary of State, Nov. 15, 1811. U. S. State 
Department MSS. 



154 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

States their attitude was likely to be uncompromising; 
and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Canning, to whom 
fell the expression of the Government's views and pur- 
poses, possessed an adroitness in fastening upon minor 
weaknesses in a case, and postponing to such the con- 
sideration of the important point at issue, which, coupled 
Avith a peremptoriness of tone often bordering on inso- 
lence, effected nothing towards conciliating a people be- 
lieved to be both unready and unwilling to fight. The 
American envoys, at their first interview, in April, met 
him with the proposition of their Government to reopen 
negotiations on the basis of the treaty of December 31. 
Learning from them that the treaty would not be ratified 
without a satisfactory arrangement concerning impress- 
ment. Canning asked what relations would then obtain 
between the two nations. The reply was that the United 
States Government wished them phiced informally on the 
most friendly footing; that is, that an understanding should 
be reached as to practical action to be expected on either 
side, without concessions of principle.^ As final instruc- 
tions from Washington were yet to come, it was agreed 
that the matter should be postponed. When they arrived, 
on July 16, the envoys drew up a letter, submitting the 
various changes desired; but conveying also the fixed 
determination of the President "to decline any arrange- 
ment, formal or informal, which does not comprise a pro- 
vision against impressments from American vessels on the 
high seas, and which would, notwithstanding, be a bar 
to legislative measures by Congress for controlling that 
species of aggression." ^ 

This letter was dated July 24, but by the time it could 
be delivered news arrived which threw into the background 
all matters of negotiation and illustrated with what respect 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 154, 160. 

2 Ibid., p. 166. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR I55 

British naval officers regarded "the instructions, repeated 
and enforced, for the observance of the greatest caution 
in impressing Britisli seamen." 1 It is probable, indeed, 
that the change of ministry, and the well-understood tone 
of the new-comers, had modified the influence of these re- 
straining orders; and Canning evidently felt that such 
an inference was natural, for Monroe reported his notice- 
able desire "to satisfy me that no new orders had been 
issued by the present ministry to the connnandant of 
the British squadron at Halifax," who was primarily re- 
sponsible for the lamentable occurrence which here tra- 
versed the course of negotiation. It had been believed, 
and doubtless correctly, that some deserters from British 
ships of war had found their way into the naval service of 
the United States. In June, 1807, the American frigate 
"Chesapeake," bearing the broad pendant of Commodore 
James Barron, had been fitting for sea in Hampton 
Roads. At this time two French ships of war were 
lying off Annapolis, a hundred miles up Chesapeake 
Bay ; and, to prevent their getting to sea, a small British 
squadron had been assembled at Lynnhaven Bay, just 
within Cape Henry, a dozen miles below the "Chesa- 
peake's " anchorage. They were thus, as Jefferson said, 
enjoying the hospitality of the United States. On 
June 22 the American frigate got under way for sea, 
and as she stood down, one of the British, the " Leopard " 
of fifty guns, also made sail, going out ahead of her. 
Shortly after noon the " Chesapeake " passed the Capes. 
When about ten miles outside, a little after three o'clock, 
the " Leopard " approached, and hailed that she had a des- 
patch for Commodore Barron. This was brought on board 
by a lieutenant, and proved to be a letter from the captain 
of the "Leopard," enclosing an order from Vice-Admiral 

1 The British Commissiouers to Mouroe and Pinkney, Nov. 8, 1806. 
Ibid., p. 140. 



156 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Berkeley, in charge of the Halifax station, " requiring and 
directing the captains and commanders of his Majesty's 
vessels under my command, in case of meeting the Ameri- 
can frigate, the ' Chesapeake,' at sea, without the limits 
of the United States, to show her captain this order, and 
to require to search his ship for deserters from certain 
British ships," specified by name. Upon Barron's re- 
fusal, the "Leopard " fired into the "Chesapeake," killed 
or wounded twenty-one men, and reduced her to submis- 
sion. The order for search was then enforced. Four 
of the American crew, considered to be British deserters, 
were taken away. Of these, one was hanged; one died; 
and the other two, after prolonged disputation, were re- 
turned five years later to the deck of the "Chesapeake," 
in formal reparation. 

Word of this transaction reached the British Govern- 
ment before it did Monroe, who was still sole American 
minister for all matters except the special mission. Can- 
ning at once wrote him a letter of regret, and spontane- 
ously promised "prompt and effectual reparation," if upon 
receipt of full information British officers should prove 
culpable. Four days later, July 29, Monroe and Canning 
met in pursuance of a previous appointment, the object 
of which had been to discuss complaints against the con- 
duct of British ships of war on the coast of the United 
States. The " Chesapeake " business naturally now over- 
shadowed all others. Monroe maintained that, on prin- 
ciple, a ship of war could not be entered to search for 
deserters, or for any purpose, without violating the sov- 
ereignty of her nation. Canning was very guarded; no 
admission of principle could then be obtained from him ; 
but he gave Monroe to understand that, in whatever light 
the action of the British officer should be viewed by his 
Government, the point whether the men seized were British 
subjects or American citizens would be of consideration, 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 157 

in the question of restoring them, now that they were in 
British hands. Monroe, in accordance with the position 
of his Government on the subject of impressment, replied 
that the determining consideration was not the nationality 
of the men, but of the ship, the flag of which had been 
insulted. 

The conference ended with an understanding that 
Monroe would send in a note embodying his position 
and claims. This he did the same day ; ^ but his statements 
were grounded upon newspaper accounts, as the British 
Government had not yet published Berkeley's official 
report. He would not await the positive information that 
must soon be given out, but applied strong language to 
acts not yet precisely ascertained; and he mingled with 
the " Chesapeake " affair other very real, but different and 
minor, subjects of complaint, seemingly with a view to 
cumulative effect. He thus made the mistake of encum- 
bering with extraneous or needless details a subject which 
required separate, undivided, and lucid insistence; while 
Canning found an opportunity, particularly congenial to 
his temperament, to escape under a cloud of dignified 
words from the simple admission of wrong, and promise 
of reparation, which otherwise he would have had to face. 
He could assume a tone of haughty rebuke, where only 
that of apology should have been left open. His reply 
ran thus: 

I have the honor to acknowledge your official note of the 29th 
ultimo, which I have lost no time in laying before the King. 

As the statement of the transaction to which this note refers 
is not brought forward either by the authority of the Govern- 
ment of the United States, or zvith any precise knoidedge of the 
facts on ivhich it is founded^ it might have been sufficient for 
me to express to you his Majesty's readiness to take the whole 
of the circumstances of the case, lohen fully disclosed^ into his 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 187. 



158 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

consideration, and to make reparation for any alleged injury to 
the sovereignty of the United States, whenever it should be 
clearly shoivn that such injury has been actually sustained, and 
that such reparation is really due. 

Of the existence of such a disposition on the part of the 
British Government, you, Sir, cannot be ignorant; I have 
already assured you of it, though in an unofficial form, by the 
letter which I addressed you on the first receipt of the intel- 
ligence of this unfortunate transaction ; and I may, perhaps, 
be permitted to express my surprise, after such an assurance, 
at the tone of that representation which I have just had the 
honor to receive from you. 

But the earnest desire of his Majesty to evince, in the most 
satisfactory manner, the principles of justice and moderation 
by which he is uniformly actuated, has not permitted him to 
hesitate in commanding me to assure you, that his Majesty 
neither does, nor has at any time maintained the pretension of 
a right to search ships of war, in the national service of any 
State, for deserters. 

If, therefore, the statement in your note should prove to he 
correct, and to contain all the circumstances of the case, upon 
which the complaint is intended to be made, and it shall appear 
that the action of his Majesty's officers rested on no other 
grounds than the simple and unqualified assertion of the pre- 
tension above referred to, his Majesty has no difficulty in dis- 
avowing the act, and will have no difficulty in manifesting his 
displeasure at the conduct of his officers. 

With respect to the other causes of complaint, (whatever they 
may be,) which are hinted at in your note, I perfectly agree 
with you, in the sentiment which you express, as to the pro- 
priety of not involving them in a question, which of itself is of 
sufficient importance to claim a separate and most serious 
consideration. 

/ have only to lament that the same sentiment did not induce 
you to abstain from alluding to these subjects, on an occasion, 
which you were yourself of opinion was not favorable for pur- 
suing the discussion of them.^ 

^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 188. Author's 
italics. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 159 

I have the honor to be, with great consideration, your most 

obedient, humble servant ^ ^ 

Geokoe Canning. 

James Monroe, Esq. &c. 

While the right of the occasion was wholly with the 
American nation, the honors of the discussion, the weight 
of the first broadside, rested so far with the British Sec- 
retary; the more so that Monroe, by his manner of ad- 
ducing his "other causes of complaint," admitted their 
irrelevancy and yet characterized them irritatingly to his 
correspondent. "I might state otlier examples of great 
indignity and outrage, many of which are of recent date, 
to which the United States have been exposed off their 
own coast, and even within several of their harbors, from 
the British squadron ; but it is improper to mingle them 
with the present more serious causes of complaint." This 
invited Canning's retort, — You do mingle them, in the 
same sentence in which you admit the impropriety. And 
why, he shrewdly insinuated, precipitate action ahead of 
knowledge, when the facts must soon be known? The 
unspoken reason is evident. Because a government, 
which by its own fault is weak, will try with big words 
to atone to the public opinion of its people for that which 
it cannot, or will not, effect in deeds. Bluster, whether 
measured or intemperate in terms, is bluster still, as long 
as it means only talk, not act. 

Monroe comforted himself that, though Canning's note 
was "harsh," he had obtained the "concession of the 
point desired." ^ He had in fact obtained less than would 
probably have resulted from a policy of which the prem- 
ises were assured, and the demands rigorously limited 
to the particular offence. Canning's note set the key 
for the subsequent British correspondence, and dictated 
the methods by which he persistently evaded an amends 

1 Monroe to Madison, Aug. 4, 1807. American State Papers, Foreign Re- 
lations, vol. iii. p. 186. 



160 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

spontaneously promised under the first emotions produced 
by an odious aggression. He continued to offer it; but 
under conditions impossible of acceptance, and as dis- 
creditable to the party at fault as they were humiliating 
to the one offended. In themselves, the first notes ex- 
changed between Monroe and Canning are trivial, a 
revelation chiefly of individual characteristics. Their in- 
terest lies in the exemplification of the general course of 
the American administration, imposed by its years of 
temporizing, of money-getting, and of military parsimony. 
President Jefferson in America met the occasion precisely 
as did Monroe in London, with the same result of a sharp 
correspondence, abounding in strong language, but afford- 
ing Canning further opportunity to confuse issues and 
escape from reparations, which, however just and wise, 
were distasteful. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Brit- 
ish minister, destroying the last chance of conciliating 
American acquiescence in a line of action forced upon 
Great Britain by Napoleon; but as a mere question of 
dialectics he had scored a success. 

When the news of the " Chesapeake " outrage was re- 
ceived in Washington, Jefferson issued a proclamation, 
dated July 2, 1807, suited chiefly for home consumption, 
as the phrase goes. He began with a recitation of the 
various wrongs and irritations, undeniable and extreme, 
which his long-suffering Administration had endured from 
British cruisers, and to which Monroe alluded in his note to 
Canning. Upon this followed an account of the " Chesa- 
peake " incident, thus inextricably entangled with other 
circumstances dift'ering from it in essential feature. Then, 
taking occasion by a transaction which, however reprehen- 
sible, was wholly external to the territory of the United 
States, — unless construed to extend to the Gulf Stream, 
according to one of Jefferson's day-dreams, — action was 
based upon the necessity of providing for the internal peace 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 161 

of the nation and the safety of its citizens, and conse- 
quently of refusing admission to British ships of war, as 
inconsistent with these ohjects. Therefore, " all armed ves- 
sels, bearing commissions under the Government of Great 
Britain, now within the harbors of the United States, are 
required immediately and without any delay to depart from 
the same ; and entrance of all the said harbors and waters is 
interdicted to the said armed vessels, and to all others bear- 
ing commissions under the authority of the British Govern- 
ment." Vessels carrying despatches were excepted. 

This procedure had the appearance of energy which 
momentarily satisfies a public demand tliat something 
shall be done. It also afforded Canning the peg on 
which to hang a grievance, and dexterously to prolong 
discussion until the matter became stale in public interest. 
By the irrelevancy of the punishment to the crime, and 
by the intrusion of secondary matters into the com- 
plaint, the " Chesapeake " issue, essentially clear, sharp, 
and impressive, became hopelessly confused with other 
considerations. Upon the proclamation followed a de- 
spatch from Madison to Monroe, July 6, which opened 
with the just words, "This enormity is not a subject for 
discussion," and then proceeded to discuss at length. 
Demand was to be made, most properly, for a formal 
disavowal, and for the restoration of the seamen to the 
ship. This could have been formulated in six lines, and 
had it stood alone could scarcely have been refused; but 
to it was attached indissolubly an extraneous requirement. 
"As a security for the future, an entire abolition of im- 
pressment from vessels ^ under the flag of the United 
States, if not already arranged, is also to make an indis- 
pensahle part of the satisfaction.'^'^ 

^ That is, all vessels, including merchantmen. 

- American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 183-185. Author's 
italics. 

TOL. 1. 11 



162 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

This made accommodation hopeless. Practically, it was 
an ultimatum ; for recent notorious discussion had demon- 
strated that this the British Government would not yield, 
and as it differed essentially from the point at issue in 
the " Chesapeake " affair, there was no reason to expect 
a change of attitude in consequence of that. Great as 
was the wrong to a merchant vessel, it has not the 
status of a ship of war, which carries even into foreign 
ports a territorial immunity resembling that of an am- 
bassador, representing peculiarly the sovereignty of its 
nation. Further, the men taken from the " Chesapeake " 
were not seized as liable to impressment, but arrested as 
deserters ; the case was distinct. Finally, Great Britain's 
power to maintain her position on impressment had cer- 
tainly not waned under the "Chesapeake" humiliation, 
and was not likely to succumb to peremptory language 
from Madison. No such demand should have been ad- 
vanced, in such connection, by a self-respecting govern- 
ment, unless prepared to fight instantly upon refusal. 
The despatch indeed contains cautions and expressions 
indicating a sense of treading on dangerous ground; an 
apprehension of exciting hostile action, though no thought 
of taking it. The exclusion of armed vessels was justified 
"by the vexations and dangers to our peace, experienced 
from these visits." The reason, if correct, was adequate 
as a matter of policy under normal conditions; but it 
became inconsistent with self-respect when the national 
flag was insulted in the attack on the "Chesapeake." 
Entire composure, and forbearance from demonstrations 
bearing a trace of temper, alone comport with such a 
situation. To distinguish against British ships of war at 
such a moment, by refusing them only, and for the 
first time, admission into American harbors, was either a 
humiliating confession of impotence to maintain order 
within the national borders, or it justified Canning's con- 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 163 

tention that it was in retaliation for tlie " Leopard's " 
action. His further plea, that it must therefore be taken 
into the account in determining the reparation due, was pet- 
tifogging, reducing a question of insult and amends to one 
of debit and credit bookkeeping; but tlie American claim 
that the step was necessary to internal quiet was puerile, 
and its precipitancy carried the appearance of petulance. 

Monroe received Madison's despatch August 30, and 
on September 3 had an interview with Canning. In it 
he specified the redress indicated by Madison. With 
this was coupled an intimation that a special mission 
to the United States ought to be constituted, to impart 
to the act of reparation "a solemnity which the extraor- 
dinary nature of the aggression particularly required." 
This assertion of the extraordinary nature of the occa- 
sion separated the incident from the impressment griev- 
ance, with which Madison sought to join it; but what 
is more instructively noticeable is the contrast between 
this extreme formality, represented as requisite, and 
the wholly informal, and as it proved unreal, with- 
drawal by Napoleon of his Decrees, which the Administra- 
tion of Madison at a later day maintained to be sufficient 
for the satisfaction of Great Britain. 

In this interview ^ Canning made full use of the ad- 
vantages given him by his adversaries' method of pres- 
entation and action. " He said that by the President's 
proclamation, and the seizure and detention of some men 
who had landed on the coast to procure water, the Gov- 
ernment seemed to have taken redress into its own hands." 
To Monroe's statement that "the suppression of the prac- 
tice of impressment from merchant vessels had been made 
indispensable by the late aggression, for reasons which 
were sufficiently known to him," he retorted, "that the 
late aggression was an act different in all resj)ects to the 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Kelations, vol. iii. pp. 191-193. 



164 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

former practice; and ought not to be connected with it, 
as it showed a disposition to make a particular incident, 
in which Great Britain was in the wrong, instrumental 
to an accommodation in a case in which his Government 
held a different doctrine." The remark went to the root 
of the matter. This was what the Administration was 
trying to do. As Madison afterwards put it to Rose, the 
President was desirous "of converting a particular inci- 
dent into an occasion for removing another and more 
extensive source of danger to the harmony of the two 
countries." This plausible rendering was not likely to 
recommend to a resolute nation such a method of obtain- 
ing surrender of a claimed right. The exclusion procla- 
mation Monroe represented to be "a mere measure of 
police indispensable for the preservation of order within 
the United States." Canning declined to be shaken from 
his stand that it was an exhibition of partiality against 
Great Britain, the vessels of which alone were excluded, 
because of an outrage committed by one of them outside 
of American waters. The time at which the proclama- 
tion issued, and the incorporation in it of the "Chesa- 
peake " incident, made this view at least colorable. 

This interview also was followed by an exchange of 
notes. Monroe's of September 7, 1807, developed the 
American case and demand as already given. That of 
Canning, September 23, stated as follows the dilemma 
raised by the President's proclamation: Either it was an 
act of partiality between England and France, the war- 
ships of the latter being still admitted, or it was an act of 
retaliation for the " Chesapeake " outrage, and so of the 
nature of redress, self-obtained, it is true, but to be taken 
into account in estimating the reparation which the British 
Government "acknowledged to have been originally due." ^ 
To the request for explanation Monroe replied lamely, 

1 American State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 199, 200. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 165 

with a statement which can scarcely be taken as otlicr 
than admitting the punitive character of the proclama- 
tion. " There certainly existed no desire of giving a 
preference;" but, — ''''Before, this aggression it is well 
known that His Britannic Majesty's ships of war lay 
within the waters of the Chesapeake, and enjoyed all 
the advantages of the most favored nation; it cannot 
therefore be doubted that my Government will be ready 
to restore them to the same situation as soon as it can he done 
consistently ivith the honor and rights of the United States.'''' ^ 

In closing his letter of September 23, Canning asked 
Monroe whether he could not, consistently with his in- 
structions, separate the question of impressment from that 
of the "Chesapeake." If not, as it was the fixed intention 
of his Government not to treat the two as connected, the 
negotiation would be transferred to Washington, and a 
special envoy sent. "But in order to avoid the incon- 
venience which lias arisen from the mixed nature of your 
instructions, he will not be empowered to entertain, as 
connected with this subject, any proposition respecting 
the search of merchant vessels." ^ Monroe replied that 
his "instructions were explicit to consider the whole of 
this class of injuries as an entire subject."^ To his in- 
quiry as to the nature of the special mission, in particu- 
lars, Canning replied that it would be limited in the first 
instance to the question of the "Chesapeake." Whether 
it would have any further scope, he could not say.* 

Mr. George Henry Rose was nominated for this mission, 
and sailed from England in November. Before his de- 
parture, the British Government took a further step, 
which in view of the existing circumstances, and of all 
that had preceded, emphasized beyond the possibility of 

1 Aniericau State Papers, vol. iii. p. 202. Author's italics. 

2 Ibid., Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 201. 

8 Ibid., p. 202. * Ibid., p. 203. 



166 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

withdrawal the firmness of its decision not to surrender 
the claim to impress British subjects from foreign mer- 
chant vessels. On October 16, 1807, a Royal Proclama- 
tion was issued, recalling all seafaring persons who had 
entered foreign services, whether naval or merchant, di- 
recting them to withdraw at once from such service and 
return home, or else to ship on board any accessible British 
ship of war. Commanders of naval vessels were ordered 
to seize all such persons whenever found by them on board 
foreign merchantmen. In the case of British-born subjects, 
known to be serving on board foreign men-of-war, — 
which was the case of the "Chesapeake," — the repetition 
of the outrage was implicitly forbidden, by prescribing 
the procedure to be observed. Requisition for the dis- 
charge of such persons was to be made on the foreign 
captain, and, in case of refusal, the particulars of the case 
were to be transmitted to the British minister to the 
nation concerned, or to the British home authorities ; " in 
order that the necessary steps may be taken for obtaining 
redress . . . for the injury done to us by the unwarranted 
detention of our natural-born subjects in the service of a 
foreign state." The proclamation closed by denying the 
efficacy of letters of naturalization to discharge native 
British from their allegiance of birth. 

Rose's mission proved abortive. Like Monroe's, his 
instructions were positive to connect with his negotiation 
a matter which, if not so irrelevant as impressment, was 
at least of a character that a politic foreign minister might 
well have disregarded, in favor of the advantage to be 
gained by that most conciliatory of actions, a full and 
cordial apology. Rose was directed not to open his busi- 
ness until the President had withdrawn the proclamation 
excluding British ships of war. Having here no more 
option than Monroe as to impressment, the negotiation 
became iron-bound. The United States Government went 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 1G7 

to the utmost limit of concession to conclude the matter. 
Receding from its first attitude, it agreed to sever the 
question of impressment from that of the " Chesapeake ; " 
but, with regard to the recalling of the President's proc- 
lamation, it demanded that Rose should show his cards, 
should state what was the nature and extent of the repara- 
tion he was empowered to offer, and whether it was condi- 
tioned or unconditioned. If this first outcome were such as 
to meet the just expectations of the Administration, revoca- 
tion of the proclamation should bear the same date as the 
British act of reparation. Certainly, more could not be 
offered. The Government could not play a blind game, 
yielding point after point in reliance upon the unknown 
contents of Rose's budget. This, however, was what it 
was required to do, according to the British envoy's read- 
ing of his orders, and the matter terminated in a fruitless 
exchange of argumentation. ^ In April, 1808, Rose quitted 
the country, and redress for the "Chesapeake " injury re- 
mained in abeyance for three years longer. Interest in 
it had waned under more engrossing events which had 
already taken place, and it was relegated by both Gov- 
ernments to the background of diplomacy. Admiral 
Berkeley had been recalled, as a mark of his Majesty's 
disapproval. He arrived in England in the beginning 
of 1808, some six months after the outrage, accompanied 
by the "Leopard." Her captain was not again given a 
ship; but before the end of the year the chief offender, 
the admiral, had been assigned to the important command 

1 The principal part of the correspondence between Rose and Madison 
will be found in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 213-220. 
Rose's instructions from Canning were first published by Mr. Henry Adams, 
History of the United States, vol. iv. pp. 178-182. They were of a character 
that completely justify the caution of the American Government in refusing 
to go further without knowing their contents, concerning which, indeed, 
Madison wrote that a glimpse had been obtained in the informal iuterviews, 
which showed their inadmissibility. Madison to Piukney, Feb. 19, 1808, U. S. 
State Department MSS. 



168 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

at Lisbon. To Pinkney's observation upon this dissatis- 
fying proceeding, Canning replied that it was impossible 
for the Admiralty to resist his claim to be employed (no 
other objection existing against him) after such a la^ise 
of time since his return from Halifax, without bringing 
him to a court-martial.^ In the final settlement, further 
punishment of Berkeley was persistently refused. 

Although standing completely apart from the continu- 
ous stream of connected events which constituted con- 
temporaneous history, — perhaps because of that very 
separateness, — the "Chesapeake" affair marks conspic- 
uously the turning-point in the relations of the two 
countries. In point of time, its aptness as a sign-post 
is notable; for it occurred just at the moment when the 
British ministry, under the general exigencies of the situ- 
ation, and the particular menace of the Tilsit compacts 
between Napoleon and the Czar, were meditating the new 
and extraordinary maritime system by which alone they 
might hope to counteract the Continental system that 
now threatened to become truly coextensive with Europe. 
But to the writer the significance of the "Chesapeake" 
business is more negative than positive ; it suggests rather 
what might have been under diiferent treatment by the 
Portland ministry. The danger to Great Britain was 
imminent and stupendous, and her measures of counter- 
action needed to correspond. These were confessedly 
illegal in the form they took, and were justified by their 
authors only on the ground of retaliation. Towards 
neutrals, among whom the United States were by far 
the chief, they were most oppressive. Yet for over 
four years not only did the American Government 
endure them, but its mercantile communit}' conformed 
to the policy of Great Britain, found profit in so doing, 
and deprecated resort to war. At a later day Jeiferson 

1 Americau State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ill. p. 300. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR le*} 

asserted bitterly that uiider British influence one fourth 
of the nation had compelled the other three fourths to 
abandon the embargo. Whether this be quite a fair 
statement may be doubted ; but there was in it so much 
of truth as to suggest the possibility, if not of acqui- 
escence in the Orders in Council, at least of such absten- 
tion from active resentment as would have been practically 
equivalent. 

The acquiescence, if possible even the co-operation, of 
America was at this time momentous to Great Britain as 
well as to Napoleon. To complete his scheme for ruining 
his enemy, by closing against her commerce all the ports 
of Europe, the Emperor needed to deprive her also of 
access to the markets of the United States; while the 
grave loss to which Great Britain was exposed in the one 
quarter made it especially necessary to retain the large 
and increasing body of consumers across the Atlantic. 
In the United States there was a division of public 
opinion and feeling, which offered a fair chance of in- 
clining national action in one direction or the other. 
Although the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 
December 31, 1806, had been rejected by the Adminis- 
tration, and disapproved by the stricter followers of 
Jefferson and Madison, it was regarded with favor in 
many quarters. Its negotiators had represented the two 
leading parties which divided the nation. Monroe was 
a republican, traditionally allied to Jefferson; Pinkney 
was a federalist. Although in it the principles of the 
United States had not been successfully asserted, as re- 
garded either impressment or the transport of colonial 
produce, the terms of compromise had commanded their 
signatures, because they held that in effect the national 
objects were obtained; that impressment would practi- 
cally cease, and the carrying trade, under the restrictions 
they had accepted, would not only flourish, but be as 



170 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

remunerative as before. Monroe, who had a large personal 
following in his state and party, maintained this view in 
strong and measured language after his return home ; and 
it found supporters in both political camps, as well as 
upon the floor of the two houses of Congress. Then, 
and afterwards, it was made a reproach to the Adminis- 
tration that it had refused a working arrangement which was 
satisfactory in its substantial results and left the principles 
of the country untouched for future assertion. Whatever 
may be thought, from an American standpoint, of the jus- 
tice or dignity of this position, it showed grave divergences 
of sentiment, from which it is the skill of an opposing 
diplomatist to draw profit. It is impossible to estimate 
the effect uj)on the subsequent course of America, if the 
British ministry, with a certain big-heartedness, had seized 
the opportunity of the "Chesapeake" affair; if they had 
disclaimed the act of their officers with frankness and 
cordiality, offering ungrudging regret, and reparation 
proportionate to the shame inflicted upon a community 
too weak in military power to avenge its wrongs. As 
it was, at a moment when the hostilities she had pro- 
voked would have been most embarrassing. Great Brit- 
ain escaped only by the unreadiness of the American 
Government. 

Left unatoned, the attack on the " Chesapeake " re- 
mained in American consciousness where Jefferson and 
Madison had sought to place it, — an example of the out- 
rages of impressment. The incidental violence, which 
aroused attention and wrath, differed in nothing but cir- 
cumstance from the procedure when an unresisting mer- 
chant vessel was deprived of men. In both cases there 
was the forcible exaction of a disputed claim. Canning, 
indeed, was at pains to explain that originally the British 
right extended to vessels of every kind; but "for nearly 
a century the Crown had forborne to instruct the com- 



FROM THE ORDERS /zV COUNCIL TO WAR 171 

manders of its ships of war to search foreign ships of war 
for deserters, . . . because to attack a national ship of 
war is an act of hostility. The very essence of the charge 
against Admiral Berkeley, as you represent it, is the hav- 
ing taken upon himself to commit an act of hostility with- 
out the previous authority of his Government." Under 
this construction, the incident only served to emphasize 
the fundamental opposition of principle, and to exasperate 
the war party in the United States. To deprive a foreign 
merchant vessel of men was not considered a hostile act; 
and the difference in the case of ships of war was only 
because the Crown chose so to construe. The argument 
was, that to retain seamen of British birth, when recalled 
by proclamation, was itself hostile, because every such 
seaman disobeying this call was a deserter. It was to 
be presumed that a foreign Power would not countenance 
their detention, and on this presumption no search of its 
commissioned ships was ordered. " But with respect to 
merchant vessels there is no such presumption." ^ 

While the " Chesapeake " affair was still in its earlier 
stages of discussion, the passage of events in Europe was 
leading rapidly to the formulation of the extreme British 
measures of retaliation for the Berlin Decree. On 
June 14 Napoleon defeated the Russians at the battle 
of Friedland; and on June 22, the day the "Leopard" 
attacked the "Chesapeake," an armistice was signed be- 
tween the contending parties. Upon this followed the 
Conventions of Tilsit, July 8, 1807, by which the Czar 
undertook to support the Continental system, and to close 
his ports to Great Britain. The deadly purpose of the 
commercial warfare thus reinforced was apparent; and 
upon the Emperor's return to Paris, soon afterwards, the 
Berlin Decree received an execution more consonant to its 
wording than was the construction hitherto given it by 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 200. 



172 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

French officials. In ^lay, an American ship, the "Hori- 
zon," bound from Enghmd to Peru, had been wrecked 
upon the coast of France. Her cargo consisted in part 
of goods of British origin. Up to that time, no deci- 
sions contrary to American neutral rights had been based 
upon the Decree by French courts; but final action in 
the case of the " Horizon " was not taken till some time 
after the Emperor's return. Meanwhile, on August 9, 
General Armstrong, the American minister, had asked 
that Spain, which had formally adopted the Berlin De- 
cree as governing its own course, should be informed of 
the rulings of the French authorities; "for a letter from 
the charge des affaires of the United States at Madrid 
shows that the fate of sundry American vessels, cap- 
tured by Spanish cruisers, will depend, not on the con- 
struction which might be given to the Spanish decree 
by Spanish tribunals, but on the practice which shall 
have been established in France." ^ This letter was 
referred in due course — August 21 — to the Minister 
of Marine, and a reply promised when his answer should 
be received. Under Napoleon's eye, doubts not enter- 
tained in his absence seem to have occurred to the min- 
isters concerned, and on September 2-i Armstrong learned 
that the Emperor had been consulted, and had said that, 
as he had expressed no exceptions to the operation of his 
Decree, French armed vessels were authorized to seize 
goods of English origin on board neutral vessels. This 
decision, having the force of law, was communicated to 
the tribunals, and under it so much of the "Horizon's" 
cargo as answered to this description was condemned. 
The rest was liberated. ^ 

When this decision became known, it was evident that 
within the range of Napoleon's power there would 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 243. 

2 Ibid., pp. 244-243. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 173 

henceforth he no refuge for British manufactures, or the 
produce of British colonies; that neutral ownership or 
jurisdiction would be no protection against force. Even 
the pity commonly extended to the shipwrecked failed, 
if his property had been bought in England. Recogni- 
tion of the increased danger was shown in the doubling 
and trebling of insurance. The geographical sweep in- 
tended to be given to the edict was manifested by the 
action of state after state whither arms had extended 
Napoleon's influence; or, as Armstrong phrased it, "hav- 
ing settled the business of belligerents, with the exception 
of England, very much to his own liking, he was now on 
the point of settling that of neutrals in the same way." 
In July, Denmark and Portugal, as yet at peace, had been 
notified that they must choose between France and England, 
and had been compelled to exclude English commerce. 
August 29, a French division entered Leghorn, belonging 
to the nominally independent Kingdom of Etruria, took 
possession of the harbor and forts, ordered the surrender 
of all British goods in the hands of the inhabitants, and 
laid a general embargo upon the shipping, among which 
were many Americans. In Lower Italy, the Papal States 
and Naples underwent the same restrictions. Prussia 
yielded under obvious constraint, and Austria acceded 
from motives of policy, distinguishable in form only from 
direct compulsion. Russia, as already said, had joined 
immediately after decisive defeat in the field. The co- 
operation of the United States, the second maritime nation 
in the world, was vital to the general plan. Could it be 
secured? Already, at an audience given to the diplo- 
matic corps on August 2, the Danish minister had taken 
Armstrong aside and asked him whether any application 
had been made to him with regard to the projected union 
of all commercial states against Great Britain. Being 
answered in the negative, he said, "You are much 



174 AXTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

favored, but it Avill not last."i Armstrong character- 
ized tliis incident as not important; but in truth the 
words italicized defined exactly tlie menacing scheme al- 
ready matured in the Emperor's mind, for the execution 
of which, as events already showed, and continued to 
prove, he relied upon the force of arms. To this the 
United States was not accessible; but to coerce or cajole 
her by other means became a prominent feature of French 
policy, which was powerfully abetted by the tone of Great 
Britain speaking through Canning. 

To appreciate duly the impending measures of the Brit- 
ish ministry, attention should fasten upon the single de- 
cisive fact that this vast combination was not the free act 
of the parties concerned, but a submission imposed by an 
external military power, which at the moment, and for five 
succeeding years, they were unable to resist. It is one 
thing to deny the right of any number of independent 
communities to join in a Customs Union ; it is another to 
maintain the obligations upon third parties of such a con- 
vention, when extorted by external compulsion. Either 
action may be resisted, but means not permissible in the 
one case may be justified in the other. In the European 
situation the subjected states, by reason of their subjec- 
tion, disappeared as factors in diplomatic consideration. 
There remained only their master Napoleon, with his 
momentary lieutenant the Czar, and opposed to them 
Great Britain. "It is obvious," said the French j\Iin- 
ister of Foreign Affairs, Champagny, to Armstrong, " that 
his Majesty cannot permit to his allies a commerce which 
he denies to himself. This would be at once to defeat his 
system and oppress his subjects. " ^ A few days later he 
wrote formally, " His Majesty considered himself bound 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 243. 
- Armstrong to Smith, U. S. Secretary of State, Jan. 28, 1810. Ibid., p. .'580. 
Author's italics. 



FROM THE OllDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 175 

to order reprisals on American vessels 7iot only in his 
territory^ but likeivise in the countries ivhich are under 
his influence, — Holland, Spain, Italy, Naples." ^ The 
Emperor by strength of arms oppressed to their grievous 
injury those who could not escape him; what should be 
the course of those whom he could not reach, to whom 
was left the choice between actual resistance and virtual 
co-operation? The two really independent states were 
Great Britain and the United States. In the universal 
convulsion of civilization, the case of the several nations 
recalls the law of Solon, that in civil tumults the man who 
took neither side should be disfranchised. 

The United States chose neutrality, and expected that 
it would be permitted her. She chose to overlook the 
interposition of Napoleon, and to regard the exclusion 
laws, forced by him upon other states, as instances of 
municipal regulation, incontestable when freely exercised. 
Not only would she not go behind the superficial form, but 
on technical grounds of international law she denied the 
right of another to do so. Great Britain had no choice. 
She was compelled to resistance ; the question was as to 
methods. Direct military action was impossible. The 
weapon used against her was commercial prohibition, which 
meant eventual ruin, unless adequately parried by her 
own action. From Europe no help w^as to be expected. 
If the United States also decided so far to support Napo- 
leon as to prosecute her trade subject to his measures, ac- 
cepting as legal regulations extorted by him from other 
European countries, the trade of Europe would be trans- 
ferred from Great Britain to America, and the revenues of 
France would expand in every way, while those of Great 
Britain shrank, — a result militarily fatal. In this the 
British Government would not acquiesce. It chose instead 
war with the United States, under the forms of peace. 

1 American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 380. Autlior's italics. 



176 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

That the tendency of the course pursued by the United 
States was to destroy British commerce, and that this tend- 
ency was successfully counteracted by the means framed 
by the British Government, — the Orders in Council, — 
admits of little doubt. When the American policy had 
worked out to its logical conclusion, in open trade with 
France, and complete interdict of importation from Great 
Britain, Joel Barlow, American Minister to France in 
1811-12, and an intimate of Jefferson and Madison, wrote 
thus to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs : "" In 
adopting the late arrangements with France the United 
States could not contemplate the deprivation of revenue. 
They really expected to draw from this country and from 
the rest of continental Europe the same species of manu- 
factures, and to as great an amount as they were accus- 
tomed to do from England. They calculated with the 
more confidence on such a result as they saw how inti- 
mately it was combined with the great and essential in- 
terests of the Imperial Government. They perceived that 
it would promote m an unexpected degree the Continental 
system, which the Emperor has so much at heart. . . . 
The Emperor now commands nearly all the ports of con- 
tinental Europe. The whole interior of the Continent 
must be supplied with American products. These must 
pass through French territory, French commercial houses, 
canals, and wagons. They must pay " toll to France in 
various ways, "and thus render these territories as tribu- 
tary to France as if they were part of her own dominions." ^ 
But Napoleon replied that his system, as it stood, had 
greatly crippled British commerce, and that if he should 
admit American shipping freely to the Continent, trade 
could not be carried on, because the English under the 
Orders in Council would take it all, going or coming. ^ 

1 Barlow to Bassano, Nov. 10, 1811. U. S. State Department MSS. 
Autlior's italics. 

- Barlow to Monroe, Dec. 19, 1811. U. S. State Departmeut MSS. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 177 

" The peril of the moment is truly supposed to be great 
beyond all former example," wrote Pinkney, now American 
minister in London, when communicating to his Govern- 
ment the further Orders in Council adopted by Great Britain, 
in response to the attempted " union of all the commercial 
states " against her. As defined by Canning to Pinkney, ^ 
" the principle upon which the wliole of this measure has 
been framed is that of refusing to the enemy those advan- 
tages of commerce which he has forbidden to this country. 
The simplest method of enforcing this system of retalia- 
tion would have been to follow the example of the enemy, 
by prohibiting altogether all commercial intercourse be- 
tween him and other states." America then would not be 
allowed to trade with the countries under his Decrees. It 
was considered, however, more indulgent to neutrals — 
to the second parties in commercial intercourse with the 
enemy — to allow this intercourse subject to duties in 
transit to be paid in Great Britain. This would raise 
the cost to the continental consumer and pay revenue to 
Great Britain. 

The Orders in Council of November 11, 1807, therefore 
forbade all entrance to ports of the countries which had 
embraced the Continental system. ' It was not pretended 
that they would be blockaded effectively. " All ports from 
which the British flag is excluded shall from henceforth 
be subject to the same restrictions, in point of trade and 
navigation, with the exceptions hereinafter mentioned, as if 
the same ivere actually blockaded in the most strict and rigor- 
ous manner by his Majesty's naval forces." The exception 
was merely that a vessel calling first at a British port would 
be allowed to proceed to one of those prohibited, after pay- 
ing certain duties upon her cargo and obtaining a fresh 
clearance. This measure was instituted by the Execu- 
tive, in pursuance of the custom of regulating trade with 

1 Feb. 22, 1808. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 206. 
VOL. I. — 12 



178 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

America by Orders in Council, prevalent since 1783; but 
it received legislative sanction by an Act of Parliament, 
March 28, 1808, which fixed the duties to be paid on the 
foreign goods thus passing through British custom-houses. 
Cotton, for instance, was to pay nine pence a pound, an 
amount intended to be prohibitor}-; tobacco, three half- 
pence. These were the two leading exports of United 
States domestic produce. In the United States this Act 
of Parliament was resented more violently, if possible, 
than the Order in Council itself. In the colonial period 
there had been less jealousy of the royal authority than of 
that of Parliament, and the feeling reappears in the dis- 
cussion of the present measures. "This," said a Virginia 
senator,! "is the Act regulating our commerce, of which 
I complain. An export duty, which could not be laid in 
Charleston because forbidden by our Constitution, is laid 
in London, or in British ports." It was literall}^ and in 
no metaphorical sense, the reimposition of colonial regu- 
lation, to increase the revenues of Great Britain by recon- 
stituting her the entrepdt of commerce between America 
and Europe. " The Orders in Council," wrote John Quincy 
Adams in a public letter, "if submitted to, would have 
degraded us to the condition of colonists." ^ 

This just appreciation preponderated over other feel- 
ings throughout the middle and southern states. Adams, 
a senator from Massachusetts, had separated himself in 
action and opinion from the mass of the people in New 
England, where, although the Orders were condemned, 
hatred of Napoleon and his methods overbore the sense 
of injury received from Great Britain. The indignation 
of the supporters of the Administration was intensified by 
the apparent purpose of the British Government to keep 
back information of the measure. Rose had sailed the 

1 Giles, AiHials of Cougress, 1808-09, pp. 123-125. 

2 N. Y. Eveuing Post, May 12, 1808. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 179 

day after its adoption, Monroe two days later, but neither 
brought any official intimation of its issuance, although 
that was announced in the papers of the day, "The 
Orders in Council," wrote Adams, "were not merely 
without official authenticity. Rumors had been for sev- 
eral weeks in circulation, derived from English prints and 
from private correspondence, that such Orders were to 
issue, ^ and no inconsiderable pains were taken to discredit 
the facts. Suspicions were lulled by declarations equiva- 
lent as nearly as possible to positive denial, and these opiates 
were continued for weeks after the embargo was laid, until 
Mr. Erskine received orders to make oificial communication 
of the Orders themselves, m proper form, to our Govern- 
ment."^ This remissness, culpable as it certainly was in 
a matter of such importance, was freely attributed to the 
most sinister motives. "These Orders in Council were 
designedly concealed from Mr. Rose, although they had 
long been deliberated upon, and almost matured, before 
he left London. They were the besom which was in- 
tended to sweep, and would have swept, our commerce 
from the ocean. Great Britain in the most insidious 
manner had issued orders for the entire destruction of 
our commerce. " ^ 

The wrath was becoming, but in this particular the 
inference was exaggerated. The Orders, modelled on 

1 Jefferson, under date of Nov. 15, 1807, alludes to such a report. 
(Jeffersou's Works, vol. v. p. 211.) Already, indeed, on Aug. 19, 1807, an 
Order in Council, addressed to vessels beariug the neutral flags of Mecklen- 
burg, Oldenburg, Papenburg, or Kniphauseu, had been issued, which, though 
brief, imposed precisely the same restrictions as tlie later celebrated ones liere 
under discussion. (Annual Register, 1807, State Papers, p. 730; Naval 
Chronicle, vol. xviii. p. 151.) The fact is interesting, as indicative of the date 
of formulating a project, for the execution of which the " Horizon " decision 
probably afforded the occasion. 

' Erskine's communication was dated Feb. 23, 1808. (American State 
Papers, vol. iii. p. 209.) Pinkney, however, had forwarded a copy of tlie 
Orders on November 17. (Ibid., p. 203.) Canning's letter, of which Erskine's 
was a transcript, was dated Dec. 1, 1807. (British Foreign Oflice Archives.) 

2 Senator Giles of Virginia. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 218. 



180 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the general plan of blockades, provided for the warning 
of a vessel which had sailed before receiving notification ; 
and not till after a first notice by a British cruiser was 
she liable to capture. Mention of such cases occurs in 
the journals of the day.^ Some captains persisted, and, 
if successful in reaching a port under Napoleon's control, 
found themselves arrested under a new Decree, — that of 
Milan, — for having submitted to a visit they could not 
resist. Such were sequestered, subject to the decision of 
the United States to take active measures against Great 
Britain. "Arrived at New York, March 2-3, [1808], ship 
'Eliza,' Captain Skiddy, 29 days from Bordeaux. All 
American vessels in France which had been boarded by 
British cruisers were under seizure. The opinion was, 
they would so remain till it was known whether the 
United States had adjusted its difficulties with Great 
Britain, in which case they would be immediately con- 
demned. A letter from the Minister of Marine was pub- 
lished that the Decree of Milan must be executed severely, 
strictly, and literally." - Independent of a perpetual need 
to raise money, by methods more consonant to the Middle 
Ages than to the current period, Napoleon thus secured 



1 The following are instances : Philailelphia, February 23. The ship 
" Venus," King, hence to the Isle of France, has returned to port. January 
17, Lat. 25° N., Long. .34° W., fell in with an English merchant fleet of thirty- 
six sail, under convoy of four ships of war. Was boarded l)y the sloop of war 
" Wanderer," which endorsed on all her papers, forbidding to enter any port 
belonging to France or her allies, they all being declared in a state of block- 
ade. Captain King therefore put back. (N. Y. Evening Post, Feb. 24, 
1808.) Salem, Mass., February 23. Arrived bark "Active," Richanlsou. 
Sailed hence for Malaga, December 12. January 2, Lat. 37° N., Long. 17° W., 
boarded by a British cruiser, and papers endorsed against entering any but 
a British ])ort. The voyage being thus frustrated. Captain Richardson re- 
turned. Marblehead, February 29. Schooner " Minerva " returned, having 
been captured under the Orders in Council, released, and come home. Ship 
" George," from Amsterdam, arrived at New York, March 6, via Yarmouth. 
Was taken by an English cruiser into Yarmouth and there cleared. (Evening 
Post, March 6.) 

- N. Y. Evening Post, March 24, 1808. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 181 

hostages for the action of the United States in its present 
dilemma. 

The Orders in Council of November 11, having been 
announced in English papers of the 10th, 11th, and 12th, 
appeared in the Washington "National Intelligencer" of 
December 18.i The general* facts were therefore known to 
the Executive and to the Legislature; and, though not 
officially adduced, could not but affect consideration, when 
the President, on December 18, 1807, sent a message to 
Congress recommending "an inhibition of the departure of 
our vessels from the ports of the United States." With 
his customary exaggerated expression of attendance upon 
instructions from Congress, he made no further detinition 
of wishes which were completely understood by the party 
leaders. "The wisdom of Congress will also see the 
necessity of making every preparation for whatever events 
may grow out of the present crisis." Accompanying the 
message, as documents justificatory of the action to be 
taken, were four official papers. One was the formal 
communication to the Fi-ench Council of Prizes of Napo- 
leon's decision that goods of English origin were lawful 
prize on board neutral vessels ; the second was the Brit- 
ish proclamation directing the impressment of British 
seamen found on board • neutral ships. These two were 
made public. Secrecy was imposed concerning the others, 
which were a letter of September 24, from Armstrong to 
the French Minister of Exterior Relations, and the reply, 
dated October 7. In this the minister, M. Champagny, 
affirmed the Emperor's decision, and added a sentence 
which, while susceptible of double meaning, certainly 
covertly suggested that the United States should join 
in supporting the Berlin Decree. " The decree of block- 
ade' has now been issued eleven months. The principal 
Powers of Europe, far from protesting against its provi- 

1 Letter of John Quincy Adams to Harrison Gray Otis. 



18:2 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

sions, have adopted them. They have perceived that its 
execution must be complete to render it more effectual, 
and it has seemed easy to reconcile these measures with 
the observance of treaties, especially at a time when the 
infractions by England of the rights of all maritime Powers 
render their interests common, and tend to unite them in 
support of the same cause." ^ This doubtless might be con- 
strued as applicable only to the European Powers ; but as 
a foremost contention of Madison and Armstrong had been 
that the Berlin Decree contravened the treaty between 
France and the United States, the sentence lent itself 
readily to the interpretation, placed upon it by the Fed- 
eralists, that the United States was invited to enforce in 
her own waters the continental system of exclusion, and 
so to help bring England to reason. 

This the United States immediately j)roceeded to do. 
Though the motive differed somewhat, the action was 
precisely that suggested. On the same da}' that Jeft'er- 
son's message was received, the Senate passed an Embargo 
Bill. This was sent at once to the House, returned with 
amendments, amendments concurred in, and bill passed 
and approved December 22. This rapidity of action — 
a Sunday intervened — shows a purpose already decided 
in general principle; while the enactment of three supple- 
mentary measures, before the adjournment of Congress in 
April, indicates a precipitancy incompatible with proper 
weighing of details, and an avoidance of discussion, com- 
mendable only on the ground that no otherwise than by 
the promptest interception could American ships or mer- 
chandise be successfully jailed in port. The bill provided 
for the instant stoppage of all vessels in the ports of the 
United States, whether cleared or not cleared, if bound to 
any foreign port. Exception was made only in favor of 
foreign ships, which of course could not be held. They 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 245. Author's italics. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 183 

might depart with cargo already on board, or in baUast. 
Vessels cleared coastwise were to be deterred from turning 
foreign by bonds exacted in double the value of ship and 
cargo. American export and foreign navigation were thus 
completely stopped; and as the Non-Importation Act at 
last went into operation on December 14/ there Avas practi- 
cal exclusion of all British vessels, for none could be ex- 
pected to enter a port where she could neither land her 
cargo nor depart. 

In communicating the embargo to Pinkney, for the 
information of the British Government, ^ Madison was 
careful to explain, as he had to the British minister at 
Washington, that it was a measure of precaution only; 
not to be considered as hostile in character. This was 
scarcely candid ; coercion of Great Britain, to compel the 
withdrawal of her various maritime measures objectionable 
to the United States, was at least a silent partner in the 
scheme, as formulated to the consciousness of Jefferson 
and his followers.^ The motive transpired, as such mo- 
tives necessarily do; but, even had it not, the operation 
of the Act, under the conditions of the European war, 

1 Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, p. 272. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Kelatious, vol. iii. p. 206. 

^ " We expected, too, some effect from coercion of interest." (Jefferson to 
Armstrong, March 5, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 433.) "The embargo is the 
last card we have to play short of war." (Jefferson to Madison, March 11, 
1808. Ibid., p. 258.) "The coercive experiment we have made." (Monroe 
to John Taylor. Works, vol. v. p. 89.) "I place immense valne on the ex- 
periment being fully made how far an Embargo may be an effectual weapon 
in future, as well as on this occasion." (Jefferson. Works, vol. v. p. 289.) 
" Bonaparte ought to be particularly satisfied with us, by whose unyielding 
adherence to principle England has been forced into the revocation of her 
Orders." (Jefferson to Madison, April 27, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 442.) This 
revocation was not actual, but a mistake of the British minister at Washington. 
" I have always understood that there were two objects contemplated by the 
Embargo Laws. The first, precautionary; the second, coercive, operating 
upon the aggressive belligerents, by addressing strong appeals to the interests 
of both." (Giles of Virginia, in Senate, Nov. 24, 1808.) " Tlie embargo is 
not designed to affect our own citizens, but to make an impression in Europe." 
(Williams of South Carolina, in House of Representatives, April 14, 1808.) 



184 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

was so plaiiily i)artiiil between the two belligerents, as to 
amount virtually to co-operation with Napoleon by the 
preponderance of injury done to Great Britain. It de- 
prived her of cotton for raw material; of tobacco, which, 
imported in payment for British manufactures, formed a 
large element in her commerce with the Continent; of 
wheat and flour, which to some extent contributed to the 
support of her people, though in a much less degree 
than many supposed. It closed to her the American 
market at the moment that Napoleon and Alexander were 
actively closing the European; and it shut off from the 
West Indies American supplies known to be of the greatest 
importance, and fondly, but mistakenly, believed to be 
indispensable. 

All this was well enough, if national policy required. 
Great Britain then was scarcely in a position to object 
seriously to retaliation by a nation thinking itself injured ; 
but to define such a measure as not hostile was an insult 
to her common-sense. It was certainly hostile in nature, 
it was believed to be hostile in motive, and it intensified 
feelings already none too friendly. In France, although 
included in the embargo, and although her action was 
one of the reasons alleged for its institution. Napoleon 
expressed approval. It was injurious to England, and 
added little to the pressure upon France exerted by the 
Orders in Council through the British control of the 
ocean. Senator Smith of Maryland, a large shipping 
merchant, bore testimony to this. " It has been truly 
said by an eminent merchant of Salem, that not more 
than one vessel in eight that sailed for Europe within a 
short time before the embargo reached its destination. 
My own experience has taught me the truth of this; 
and as further proof I have in my hand a list of fifteen 
vessels which sailed for Europe between September 1 and 
December 23, 1807. Three arrived; two were captured 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 185 

by French and Spaniards; one was seized in Ilanibuig; 
and nine carried into England. But for the embargo, 
ships that would have sailed would have fared as ill, or 
worse. Not one in twenty would have arrived." Grant- 
ing the truth of this anticipation, Great Britain might 
have claimed that, so far as evident danger was con- 
cerned, her blockades over long coast-lines were effective. 

The question speedily arose, — If the object of embargo 
be precaution only, to save our vessels from condemnation 
under the sweeping edicts of France and Great Britain, 
and seamen from impressment on American decks, Avhy 
object to exporting native produce in foreign bottoms, 
and to commerce across the Canada frontier? If, by 
keeping our vessels at home, we are to lose the profits 
upon sixty million dollars' worth of colonial produce which 
they have heretofore been carrying, with advantage to the 
national revenue, why also forbid the export of the forty 
to fifty million dollars' worth of domestic produce which 
foreign ship-owners would gladly take and safely carry? 
for such foreigners would be chiefly British, and would 
sail under British convoy, subject to small proportionate 
risk.i Why, also, to save seamen from impressment, 
deprive them of their living, and force them in search 
of occupation to fly our ports to British, where lower 
wages and more exposure to the pressgang await them? 
On the ground of precaution, there was no reply to these 
questions; unless, perhaps, that with open export of do- 
mestic produce the popular suffering would be too un- 
equally distributed, falling almost wholly on New England 
shipping industries. Logically, however, if the precau- 
tion were necessary, the suffering must be accepted; its 
incidence was a detail only. The embargo was distinctly 
a hostile measure; and more and more, as people talked, 

1 The writer, in a previous work (Sea Power in the French Revolution), 
believes himself to have shown that the losses by capture of British traders 
did not exceed two and one half per cent. 



186 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

in and out of Congress, was admitted to be simply an 
alternative for open war. 

As such it failed. It entailed most of the miseries of 
war, without any of its compensations. It could not 
arouse the popular enthusiasm which elevates, nor com- 
mand tlie popular support that strengthens. Hated and 
despised, it bred elusion, sneaking and demoralizing, and 
so debased public sentiment with reference to national 
objects, and individual self-sacrifice to national ends, that 
the conduct of the many who now evaded it was repro- 
duced, during the War of 1812, in dealings with the enemy 
which even now may make an American's head hang for 
shame. Born of the Jeffersonian horror of war, its evil 
communication corrupted morals among those whose stand- 
ards were conventional only; for public opinion failed to 
contlemn breaches of embargo, and by a natural declension 
equally failed soon after to condemn aid to the enemy in 
an unpopular war. Was it wonderful that an Administra- 
tion which bade the seamen and the ship-owners of the 
day to starve, that a foreign state might be injured, and 
at the same time refused to build national ships to protect 
them, fell into contempt ? that men, so far as they might, 
simply refused to obey, and wholly departed from respect? 
"I have believed, and still do believe," wrote Mr. Adams, 
" that our internal resources are competent to establish and 
maintain a naval force, if not fully adequate to the pro- 
tection and defence of our commerce, at least sufficient to 
induce a retreat from these hostilities, and to deter from 
the renewal of them by either of the harrying parties ; " in 
short, to compel peace, the first object of military prepara- 
tion. "I believed that a system to that effect might be 
formed, ultimatel}^ far more economical, and certainly more 
energetic than a three years' embargo. I did submit such 
a proposition to the Senate, and similar attempts had been 
made in the House of Representatives, but equally dis- 



FR()]\r THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 187 

countenanced."^ This ^yas precisely the effect of Jef- 
ferson's teaching, which then dominated his party, and 
controlled both houses. At this critical moment he wrote, 
"Believing, myself, that gunboats are the only water de- 
fence which can be useful to us, and protect us from the 
ruinous folly of a navy, I am pleased with everything which 
promises to improve them."^ 

Not thus was a nation to be united, nor foreisrn gtov- 
ernments impressed. The panacea recommended was to 
abandon the sea; to yield practical submission to the 
Orders in Council, which forbade American ships to visit 
the Continent, and to the Decrees of Napoleon, which for- 
bade them entrance to any dominion of Gi'eat Britain. By 
a curious mental process this was actually believed to be 
resistance. The American nation was to take as its model 
the farmer who lives on his own produce, sternly independ- 
ent of his neighbor; whose sons delved, and wife span, 
all that the family needed. This programme, half senti- 
ment, half philosophy, and not at all practical, or practi- 
cable, was the groundwork of Jefferson's thought. To it 
co-operated a dislike-approaching detestation for the car- 
rying trade ; the very opposite, certainly, of the other ideal. 
American shipping was then handling sixty million dollars' 
worth of foreign produce, and rolling up the wealth which 
for some reason follows the trader more largely than 
the agriculturist, who observed with ill-concealed envy. 
"I trust, "wrote Jefferson, "that the good sense of our 
country will see that its greatest prosperity depends on a 
due balance between agriculture, manufactures, and com- 
merce, and not on this protuberant navigation, which has 
kept us in hot water from the commencement of our gov- 
ernment. This drawback system enriches a few individuals, 
but lessens the stock of native productions, by withdraw- 

1 Letter to Otis. 

- To Thomas P.aiue, conceruing an improved gunboat devised by him. 
Sept. 6, 1807. (Jefferson's Works, vol. v. p. 189.) 



188 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

ing all the hands [seamen] thus employed. It is essentially 
necessary for us to have shipping and seamen enough to 
carry our surplus products to market, but beyond that I 
do not think we are bound to give it encouragement by 
drawbacks or other premiums." This meant that it was 
unjust to the rest of the community to allow the merchant 
to land his cargo, and send it abroad, without paying as 
much duty as if actually consumed in the country. " This 
exuberant commerce brings us into collision with other 
Powers in every sea, and will force us into every war with 
European Powers." "It is now engaging us in war." ^ 

Whether for merchant ships or navies the sea was odi- 
ous to Jefferson's conception of things. As a conven- 
ient medium for sending to market surplus cotton and 
tobacco, it might be tolerated ; but for that ample use of 
it which had made the greatness of Holland and Eng- 
land, he had only aversion. This prepossession char- 
acterized the whole body of men, who willingly stripped 
the seaman and his employers of all their living, after 
refusing to provide them with an armed protection to 
which the resources of the state were equal. Up to the 
outbreak of the war not a ship was added to the navy. 
With this feeling, Great Britain, whose very being was 
maritime, not unnaturally became the object of a dislike 
so profound as unconsciously to affect action. Napoleon 
decreed, and embargoed, and sequestered, with little effect 
upon national sentiment outside of New England. "Cer- 
tainly all the difficulties and the troubles of the Govern- 
ment during our time proceeded from England," wrote 
Jefferson soon after quitting office,^ to Dearborn, his 
Secretary of War. "At least all others were trifling in 
comparison." Yet not to speak of the Berlin Decree, 
by which ships were captured for the mere offence of 

1 Jefferson's Works, vol. v. pp. 417, 426. 
- June 14, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 455. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 189 

sailing for England,^ Bonaparte, by the Bayonne Decree, 
April IT, 1808, nearly a year before Jefferson left office, 
pronounced the confiscation of all American vessels enter- 
ing ports under his control, on the ground that under the 
existing embargo they could not lawfully have left their 
own country; a matter which was none of his business. 
Within a year were condemned one liundred and thirty- 
four ships and cargoes, worth $10,000,000.2 

That Jefferson consciously leaned to France from any 
regard to Napoleon is incredible ; the character and pro- 
cedures of the French Emperor were repugnant to his 
deepest convictions; but that there was a still stronger 
bias against the English form of government, and the 
pursuit of the sea for which England especially stood, is 
equally clear. Opposition to England was to him a kind 
of mission. His best wish for her had been that she might 
be republicanized by a successful French invasion. ^ "I 
came into office," he wrote to a political disciple, "under 
circumstances calculated to generate peculiar acrimony. 

1 An Americau ship putting into Euiiland, leaky, reported that on Dec. 18, 
1807, she hail been boarded by a French privateer, which allowed her to pro- 
ceed because bound to Holland. The French captain said he had captured 
four Americans, all sent into Passage, in Spain ,• and that his orders were to 
bring in all Americans bound to English ports. (N. Y. Evening Post, 
March 1, 1808.) This was under the Berlin Decree, as that of Milan i,ssued 
only December 17. Tiie Berlin Decree proclaimed the British Islands under 
blockade, but Napoleon for a time reserved decision as to the mere act of 
sailing for them being an infringement. Mr. James Stephen, in Parliament, 
stated that in 1807 several ships, not less than twenty -one, he thought, were 
taken for the mere fact of sailing between America and England ; in conse- 
quence, insurance on American vessels rose 50 per cent, from '2\ to 3f. (Par- 
liamentary Debates, vol. xiii. p. xxxix. App.) In the Evening Post of 
March 3, 1808, will be foimd, quoted from a French journal, cases of four 
vessels carried into France, apparently only because bound to England. 

^ Henry Adams's History of the United States, vol. v. p. 242. 

3 " Nothing can establish firmly the republican principles of our govern- 
ment but an establishment of them in England. France will be the apostle 
for this." (Jefferson's Works, vol. iv. p. 192.) " The sulijugation of England 
would be a general calamity. Happily it is impossible. Should invasion 
end in her being only repul)licanized, I know not on what principles a true 
republican of our country could lament it." (Ibid., p. 217 ; Feb. 23, 1798.) 



190 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

I found all the offices in the possession of a political sect, 
who wished to transform it ultimately into the shape of 
their darling model, the English government; and in the 
meantime to familiarize the public mind to the change, 
by administering it on English principles, and in English 
forms. The elective interposition of the people had blown 
all their designs, and they found themselves and their for- 
tresses of power and profit put in a moment in the hand of 
other trustees." ^ 

These words, written in the third of the fifteen embargo 
months, reveal an acrimony not wholly one-sided. It was 
perceived by the parties hardest hit by this essentially 
Jeffersonian scheme ; by the people of New England and 
of Great Britain. In the old country it intensified bitter- 
ness. In the following summer, at a dinner given to rep- 
resentatives of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon, the 
toast to the President of the United States was received 
with hisses,2"and the marks of disapprobation continued 
till a new subject drew off the attention of the company." 
The embargo was not so much a definite cause of com- 
plaint, for at worst it was merely a retaliatory measure 
like the Orders in Council. Enmity was recognized, 
alike in the council boards and in the social gatherings 
of the two peoples; the spirit that leads to war was 
aroused. Nor could this hostile demonstration proceed 
from sympathy with the Spanish insurgents; for, except 
so far as might be inferred from the previous general 
course of the American Administration, there was no 
reason to believe that they would regard unfavorably the 
Spanish struggle for liberty. Yet they soon did, and 
could not but do so. 

It is a coincidence too singular to go unnoticed, that 
the first strong measure of the American Government 

1 Jefferson to Richartl M. Joliuson, March 10, 1808. Works, vol. v. ]>. 2,57. 

2 London Times of Au<^ust 6, quoted in N. Y. Evening Post of Oct. 10, 1808. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 101 

against Great Britain — Embargo — was followed by 
Napoleon's reverses in Spain, which, by opening much 
of that country and of her colonies to trade, at once in 
large measure relieved Great Britain from the pressure 
of the Continental system and the embargo; while the 
second, the last resort of nations, War, was declared 
shortly before the great Russian catastrophe, which, by 
rapidly contracting the sphere of the Emperor's control, 
both widened the area of British commerce and deprived 
the United States of a diversion of British effort, upon 
which calculation had rightly been based. It was im- 
possible for the American Government not to wish well 
to Napoleon, when for it so much depended upon his 
success; and to wish him well was of course to wish ill 
to his opponents, even if fighting for freedom. 

Congress adjourned April 25, having completed embargo 
legislation, as far as could then be seen necessary. On 
May 2 occurred the rising in Madrid, consequent upon 
Napoleon's removal of the Spanish Royal Family; and 
on July 21 followed the surrender of Dupont's corps at 
Baylen. Already, on July 4, the British Government 
had stopped all hostilities against Spain, and withdrawn 
the blockade of all Spanish ports, except such as might 
still be in French control. On August 30, by the Con- 
vention of Cintra, Portugal was evacuated by the French, 
and from that time forward the Peninsula kingdoms, though 
scourged by war, were in alliance with Great Britain; their 
ports and those of their colonies open to her trade. 

This of itself was a severe blow to the embargo, which 
for coercive success depended upon the co-operation of 
the Continental system. It was further thwarted and 
weakened by extensive popular repudiation in the United 
States. The political conviction of the expediency, or 
probable efficacy, of the measure was largely sectional; 
and it is no serious imputation upon the honesty of its 



192 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

supporters to say that they mustered most strongly where 
interests were least immediately affected. Tol)acco and 
cotton suffered less in keeping than flour and salt fish ; 
and the deterioration of these was by no means so instant 
as the stoppage of a ship's sailing or loading. The farmer 
ideal is realizable on a farm ; but it was not so for the men 
whose sole occupation was transporting that which the 
agriculturist did not need to markets now closed by law. 
Wherever employment depended upon commerce, distress 
was immediate. The seamen, improvident by habit, first 
felt the blow. "I cannot conceive," said Representative 
[afterwards Justice] Story, "why gentlemen should wish 
to paralyze the strength of the nation by keeping back our 
naval force, and particularly now, when many of our native 
seamen (and I am sorry to say from my own knowledge 
I speak it) are starving in our ports." ^ The Command- 
ant of the New York Navy Yard undertook to employ, for 
rations only, not wages, three hundred of those adrift in 
the streets ; the corporation of the city undertaking to pay 
for the food issued. ^ They moved off, as they could get 
opportunity, towards the British Provinces; and thus 
many got into the British service, by enlistment or im- 
pressment. " Had your frigate arrived here instead of the 
Chesapeake," wrote the British Consul General at New 
York, as early as February 15, 18@8, "1 have no doubt 
two or three hundred able British seamen would have 
entered on board her for his Majesty's service; and even 
now, was your station removed to this city, I feel confi- 
dent, i^rovided the embargo continues^ you would more than 
complete your complement.''^ Six months later, "Is it 
not notorious that not a seaport in the United States can 
produce seamen enough to man three merchant ships ? " * 

1 Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 1032. 

- Captains' Letters, U. S. Navy Department MSS. Jan. 11, 1808. 
•* Tliomas Barclay's Correspondence, p. 274. Autlior's italics. 
* N. y. Evening Post, Sept. I, 1808. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 193 

111 moving the estimates for one hundred and thirty thou- 
sand seamen a year hiter (February, IbO'J), the Secretary 
of the Admiralty observed that Parliament would learn 
with satisfaction that the number of seamen now serving 
ill the navy covered, if it did not exceed, the number here 
voted. 1 It had not been so once. Sir William Parker, 
an active frigate ca})tain during ten years of this period, 
wrote in 1805, ""I dread the discharge of our crew; for I 
do not think the miserable wretches with which the ships 
lately fitted out were manned are equal to fight their 
ships in the manner they are expected to do."^ The 
high wages, which the profits of tlie American merchant 
service enabled it to pay, outbade all competition by the 
British navy. "Dollars for shillings," as the expression 
ran. The embargo stopped all this, and equivalent con- 
ditions did not return before the war. The American 
Minister to France in 1811 wrote: "We complain with 
justice of the English practice of pressing our seamen into 
their service. But the fact is, and there is no harm in 
saying it, there are at present more American seamen who 
seek that service than are forced into it." ^ 

After the seamen followed the associated employments; 
those whose daily labor was expended in occupations con- 
nected with transportation, or who produced objects which 
men could not eat, or with which they could dispense. 
Before the end of the year testimony came from every 
quarter of the increase of suffering among the deserving 
poor; and not they only, but those somewhat above them 
as gainers of a comfortable living. They were for the most 
part helpless, except as helped by their richer neighbors. 
Work for them there was not, and they could not rebel. 
Not so with the seafarers, or the dwellers upon the fron- 

1 Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xii. p. 326. 
- Life of Sir William Parker, vol. i. p. 304. 

3 Barlow to Bassauo, Nov. 10, 1811. U. S. State Department MSS. 
VOL. I. — 13 



194 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

tiers. On the great scale, of course, a sure enforcement 
of the embargo was possible ; the bulk of the shipping, 
especially the bigger, was corralled and idle. In the port 
of New York, Fel)ruary 17, 1808, lay IGl ships, 121 brigs, 
and 98 smaller sea-going vessels ; in all 380 unoccupied, of 
which onh' 11 were foreign. In the nnich smaller port 
of Savannah, at this early period there were 50. In 
Philadelphia, a year later, 293, mostly of large tonnage 
for the period. "What is that huge forest of dry trees 
that spreads itself before the town?" asked a Boston 
journal. " You behold the masts of ships thrown out of 
employment by the embargo."^ "Our dismantled, ark- 
roofed vessels are indeed decaying in safety at our 
wharves, forming u suitable monument to the memory 
of our departed commerce. But where are your seamen ? 
Gone, sir! Driven into foreign exile in search of subsist- 
ence."^ Yet not all; for illicit employment, for evading 
the Acts, enough remained to disconcert the Govern- 
ment, alike by their numbers and the boldness of their 
movements. 

"This Embargo law," wrote Jefferson to Gallatin, 
August 11, 1808, "is certainly the most embarrassing 
we ever had to execute. I did not expect a crop of so 
sudden and rank growth of fraud, and open opposition 
by force, could have grown up within the United States. "^ 
Apostle of pure democracy as he was, he had forgotten to 
reckon with the people, and had mistaken the convictions 
of himself and a coterie for national sentiment. From all 
parts of the country men began silently and covertly to 
undermine the working of the system. Passamaquoddy 
Bay on the borders of New Brunswick, and St. Mary's on 
the confines of Florida, remote from ordinary commerce, 

1 N. Y. Evening Tost, Feb. IS, June 30, 1808 ; Feb. 24, 1809. 

2 Senator White of ])ela\vai-e. Auuals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 52. 

3 Works, vol. V. p. 3.36. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 195 

became suddenly crowded with vessels. ^ Coasters, not 
from recalcitrant New England only, but from the Chesa- 
peake and Southern waters, found it impossible to reach 
their ports of destination. Furious gales of wind drove 
them from their course; s])ars smitten with decay went 
overboard; butts of planking started, causing dangerous 
leaks. Safety could be found only by bearing up for 
some friendly foreign port, in Nova Scotia or the West 
Indies, where cargoes of flour and fish had to be sold for 
needed repairs, to enable the homeward voyage to be made. 
Not infrequently the vessel's name had been washed off 
the stern by the violence of the waves, and the captain 
could remember neither it nor his own. The New York 
and Vermont frontiers became the scene of widespread 
illegal trade, the shameful effects of which ujjon the 
patriotism of the inhabitants were conspicuous in the 
following war. A gentleman returning from Canada in 
January, 1809, reported that he had counted seven hundred 
sleighs, going and returning between Montreal and Ver- 
mont.^ This on one line only. A letter received in New 
York stated tliat, during the embargo year, 1808, thirty 
thousand barrels of potash had been brought into Quebec.^ 
" While our gunboats and cutters are watching the harbors 
and sounds of the Atlantic, "said a senator from his place, 
"a strange inversion of business ensues, and by a retro- 
grade motion of all the interior machinery of the country, 
potash and lumber are launched upon the lakes, and On- 
tario and Champlain feel the bustle of illicit traffic. . . . 
Violators of the laws are making fortunes, while the con- 
scientious observers of them are suffering sad privations."* 

1 "Trinidad, July 1, 1808. We have just received 15,000 barrels of flour 
from Passamaquoddy, aud not a weelv passes but some droj)s in from Phila- 
delphia, Norfolk, etc. Cargo of 1,000 barrels would not now command nKjre 
than twelve dollars; a year ago, eighteen." (N. Y. Evening Post, July 25.) 

- N. Y. Evening Post, Jan. 17, 1809. 3 jbid., February 6. 

* Mitchill of N. Y. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, pp. 86, 92. 



196 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Not the conscientious only, but the unlucky. Unlike New 
York, North Carolina had not a friendly foreign boundary 
nigh to her naval stores. 

Under these circumstances the blow glanced from the 
British dominions. At the first announcement of the 
embargo, prices of provisions and lumber rose heavily 
in the West Indies; but reaction set in, as the leaks in 
the dam became manifest and copious. The British 
Government fostered the rebellious evasions of Ameri- 
can citizens by a proclamation, issued April 11, directing 
commanders of cruisers not to interrupt any neutral vessel 
laden with provisions or lumber, going to the West Indies ; 
no matter to whom the property belonged, nor whether 
the vessel had any clearance, or papers of any kind. A 
principal method of eluding the embargo, Gallatin in- 
formed Jefferson, was by loading secretly and going off 
without clearing. " Evasions are chiefly effected by ves- 
sels going coastwise."^ The two methods were not incom- 
l^atible. Besides the sea-going vessels already mentioned 
as lying in New York alone, there were there over four 
hundred coasters. It was impossible to watch so many. 
The ridiculous gunboats, identified with this Administra- 
tion, derisively nicknamed " Jeffs '" ^ by the unbelieving, 
were called into service to arrest the evil; but neither 
their numbers nor their qualities fitted them to cope with 
the ubiquity and speed of their nimble opponents. " The 
larger part of our gunboats," wrote Commodore Shaw^ 
from New Orleans, "are well known to be dull sailers." 
"For enforcing the embargo," said Secretary Gallatin, 
"gunboats are better calculated as a stationary force, and 
for the purpose of stopping vessels in certain places, than 
for pursuit."^ A double bond was a mockery, when in 

1 Jefferson's Works, vol. v. pp. 298, 318. 

2 N. Y. Evening Post, Aug. 31, 1808. 

3 Feb. 17, 1812. Captains' Letters, U. S. Navy Department MSS. 
* American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. p. 306. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 197 

West Indian ports the cargo was worth from four to eight 
times what it was at the phice of loading. These were 
the pahnier days of the embargo breakers ; the ease and 
frequency with which they escaped soon brought prices 
down. Randolph, in the House, asserted that in the first 
four months of embargo one hundred thousand barrels of 
flour had been shipped from Baltimore alone; and the 
West India planters, besides opening new sources of sup- 
ply, devoted part of their ground to raising food. They 
thus turned farmer, after the Jefferson ideal, supporting 
themselves off their own grounds; an economical error, 
for sugar was their better crop, but unavoidable in the 
circumstances. With all this, the difficulty in the way of 
exportation so cheapened articles in the United States as 
to maintain a considerable disproportion in prices there 
and abroad, which kept alive the spirit of speculation, and 
maintained the opportunity of large profits,^ at the same 
time that it distressed the American grower. 

Upon the whole, after making allowance for the boasts 
which succeeded the first fright in the West Indies, the 
indications seem to be that they escaped much better than 
had been expected, either by themselves or by the Ameri- 
can Government Just before adjourning, Congress had 
passed a supplementary measure, which, besides drawing 
restrictions tighter, authorized the President to license 
vessels to go abroad in ballast, in order to bring home 
property belonging to American citizens. These dis- 
j)ersed in various directions, and in very large numbers. ^ 
Many doubtless remained away; but those which returned 
brought constant confirmation of the numerous American 

1 With flour varying at short intervals from S30 to $18, and $12, a barrel, 
it is evident that speculation must be rife, and also that only general state- 
ments can be made as to conditions over any length of time. 

- Orchard Cook, of Massachusetts, said in the House of Representatives 
that 590 vessels sailed thus by permission. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, 
p. 1250. 



198 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

slii^^ping in the yarioiis ports of the West Indies, and the 
general abundance of American produce. A letter from 
Havana, September 12, said: "We have nearly one hun- 
dred American vessels in port. Three weeks ago there 
were but four or five. If the property, for which these 
vessels were ostensibly despatched, had been really here, 
why have they been so long delayed? The truth is, the 
property is not here. A host of people have been let 
loose, Avho could not possibly have had any other motive 
than procuring freight and passengers from merchants of 
this country, or from the French, who are supposed to be 
going off with their property [in consequence of the 
Spanish outbreak]. The vast number of evasions and 
smugglers which the embargo has created is surprising. 
For some days after the last influx of American vessels, 
the quays and custom-house were every morning covered 
with all kinds of provisions, which had been landed dur- 
ing the preceding night." ^ 

To Quebec and Halifax the embargo was a positive 
boon, from the diversion upon them of smuggling enter- 
prise, by the lakes and by land, or by coasters too small to 
make the direct voyage to the West Indies. In conse- 
quence of the embargo, these towns became an entrepot of 
commerce, such as the Orders in Council were designed 
to make the British Islands. There was, of course, a re- 
turn trade, through them, of British manufactures smug- 
gled into the United States. These imports seem to have 
exceeded the exports by the same route. A New Bedford 
town meeting, in August, affirmed that gold was already 
at a premium, from the facility with which it was trans- 
ported through the country, and across the frontier, in 
payment of purchases.^ At the end of the summer one 
hundred and fifty vessels were despatched from Quebec 
with full cargoes, and it may be believed they had not 

1 N. Y. Eveuiug Post, Oct. 3, 1808. 2 jhid.^ ggpt. 2, 1808. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 199 

arrived empty. " From a Canada price current now before 
U.S, it M'ill be seen that since the embargo was laid the 
single port of Quebec has done more foreign business than 
the whole United States, In less than eleven months there 
cleared thence three hundred and thirty-four vessels." ^ An 
American merchant visiting Halifax wrote home: "Our 
embargo is an excellent thing for this place. Every in- 
habitant of Nova Scotia is exceedingly desirous of its con- 
tinuance, as it will be the making of their fortunes. "^ 
Independent of the entrepot profit, the British provinces 
themselves produced several of the articles which fig- 
ured largely among the exports of the middle and eastern 
states; not to the extent imagined by Sheffield, sufficient 
to supply the West Indies, but, in the artificial scarcity 
caused by the embargo, the enhanced prices redounded 
directly to their advantage. Sir George Prevost, gov- 
ernor of Nova Scotia, summed up the experience of the 
year by saying that " the embargo has totally failed. New 
sources have been resorted to with success to supply de- 
ficiencies produced by so sudden an interruption of com- 
merce, and the vast increase of export and import of 
this province proves that the embargo is a measure well 
adapted to promote the true interests of his Majesty's 
American colonies."*^ 

Upon the British Islands themselves the injury was 
more appreciable and conspicuous. It was, moreover, 
in the direction expected by Jefferson and his sup- 
porters. The supply of cotton nearly ceased. Mr. Bar- 
ing, March 6, 1809, said in the House of Commons that 
raw material had become so scarce and so high, that in 
many places it could not be procured. "In Manchester 
during the greatest part of the past year, only nine cotton 
mills were in full employment; about thirty-one at half 

1 N. Y. Eveuing Tost. Feb. 28, 1809. 

2 Ibid., Sept. 21, 1808. 3 Jbid.^ j^ec. 8, 1808. 



200 AXTECEDEXTS OF THE WAR 

work, and forty-four Avithout any at all."'^ Flaxseed, 
essential to the Irish linen manufactures, and of which 
three fourths came from America, liad risen from £21 to 
£23 the quarter.2 The exports for the year 1808 had 
fallen fifteen per cent; the imports the same amount, 
involving a total diminution in trade of £14,000,000. 
An increase of distress was manifested in the poor rates. 
In INIanchester they had risen from £24,000 to £49,000. 
On the other hand, the harvest for the j-ear, contrary to 
first anticipation, had been very good ; and, in part com- 
pensation for intercourse with the United States, there 
was the opening of Spain, Portugal, and their extensive 
colonies, the effect of which was scarcely yet fully felt. 

There was, besides, the relief of American competition 
in the carrying trade. This was a singularly noteworthy 
effect of the embargo; for this industry was particular!}- 
adverse to United States navigation, and particularly bene- 
iited by the locking up of American shipping. On April 
28, 1808, there was not in Liverpool a vessel from Boston 
or New York.^ The year before, four hundred and eighty- 
nine had entered, paying a tonnage duty of £36,960.^ In 
Bristol at the same time there were only ten Americans. 
In consequence of the loss of so much tonnage, " those 
who have anything to do with vessels for freight or charter 
are absolutely insolent in their demands. For a ship of 
330 tons from this to St. Petersburg and back £3,300 
have been paid; £2,000 for a ship of 199 tons to Lisbon 
and back."^ At the end of August, in Liverpool, the 
value of British shipping had increased rapidl}', and 
vessels which had long been laid up found profitable 
employment at enormous freights.^ 

1 Cobbett's riirliaineiitary Debates, vol. xii. p. 1194. 

2 Lord Greuville in House of Lords. Ibid., p. 780. 

8 N. Y. Evening Post, June 28, 1808. * Ibid., April S. ^ ii,i(|^ June 28. 

" Ibid., October 27. The same effect, tliongb on a much smaller scale, was- 

seen in France. Deprived, through the joint operation of the embargo ami 



FROM THE ORDERS IX COUNCIL TO WAR 201 

Thus, while the effect of the embargo doubtless was 
to raise prices of American goods in England, it stopped 
American competition with the British carrying trade, 
especially in West India produce. This occurred also 
at the time when the revolt of Spain opened to British 
navigation the colonies from which Americans hitherto 
had been the chief carriers. The same event had further 
relieved British shipping by the almost total destruction 
of French privateering, thenceforth banished from its 
former ports of support in the Caribbean. From all 
these causes, the appreciation quoted from a London 
letter of September 5 seems probably accurate. " The 
continuance of the embargo is not as yet felt in any 
degree adequate to make a deep impression on the public 
mind. . . . Except with those directly interested [mer- 
chants in the American trade], the dispute with the United 
States seems almost forgotten, or remembered only to draw 
forth ironical gratitude, that the kind embargo leaves the 
golden harvest to be reaped by British enterprise alone." ^ 

Upon the whole, through silent popnlar resistance, and 
the concurrence of the Spanish revolution, the United 
States by cutting its own throat underwent more distress 
than it inflicted upon the enemy. Besides the widespread 
individual suffering,^ already mentioned, the national rev- 

tlie Orders iu Council, of colonial produce brought by Americans, a number 
of vessels were fitted out, and armed as letters of marque, to carry on this 
trade. These adventures were very successful, tliough tliey by no means 
filled the void caused by the absence of American carriers. See Evening 
Tost of Dec. 29, 1808, and Marcli 22 and 28, 1809. One of these, acting on 
her commission as a letter of marque, captured an American brig, returning 
from India, which was carried into Cayenne and there condemned under the 
Milan Decree. Ibid., Dec. 6, 1808. 

1 N. Y. Evening Post, Nov. 2.3, 1808. 

2 For some instances see: Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 428; N. Y. 
Evening Post, Feb. 5, 8, 12; May 13; Aug.'2G; Sept. 27, 1808. Gallatin, 
in a report dated Dec. 10, 1808, said, "At no time has there been so much 
specie, so mucli redundant unemployed capital in the country;" scarcely a 
token of prosperity in so new a country. (American State Papers, Finance, 
vol. ii. p. 309.) 



202 AXTECEDEXTS OF THE WAR 

enue, dependent almost Avholly on customs, shrank \\\\\\ 
the imports. Despite the relief afforded by cargoes bound 
home when the embargo passed, and the })ermits issued to 
bring in American property abroad, tlie income from this 
source sank from over -^6, 000, 000 to S8, 400,000.1 " How- 
ever dissimilar in some respects," wrote Gallatin in a pub- 
lic report, "it is not believed that in their effect upon 
national wealth and public revenue war and embargo would 
be materially different. In case of war, some part of that 
revenue will remain; but if embargo and suspension of 
commerce continue, that which arises from commerce will 
entirely disappear."^ Jefferson nevertheless clung to the 
system, even to the end of his life, with a conviction that 
defied demonstration. The fundamental error of concep- 
tion, of course, was in considering embargo an efficient 
alternative for war. The difference between the two 
measures, regarded coercively, was that embargo inflicted 
upon his own people all the loss that war could, yet spared 
the opponent that whicli war might do to him. For the 
United States, war would have meant, and when it came 
did mean, embargo, and little more. To Great Britain it 
would have meant all that the American embargo could 
do, plus the additional effort, expense, and actual loss, 
attendant upon the increased exposure of her maritime 
commerce, and its protection against active and numer- 
ous foes, singularly well fitted for annoyance by their 
qualities and situation. War and embargo, combined, 
with Napoleon in the plenitude of his power, as he was 
in 1808, would sorely have tried the enemy; even when 
it came, amid the Emperor's falling fortunes, the strain 
was severe. But Jefferson's lack of appreciation for mari- 
time m.atters, his dislike to the navy, and the weakness 

1 American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. pp. 307, 373, 442. The second 
figure is an average of the two years, 180S, 1809, witliiu whicli fell tlie 
fifteen months of embargo. 

2 Ibid., p. 309 (Dec. 10, 1808). 



FROM THE OEDEllS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 203 

to which he had systematically reduced it, prevented his 
realizing the advantages of war over embargo, as a meas- 
ure of coercion. To this contributed also his conviction 
of the exposure of Canada to offensive operations, which 
was just, though fatally vitiated by an unfounded confi- 
dence in untrained troops, or militia summoned from their 
farms. Neither was there among his advisers any to cor- 
rect his views; rather they had imbibed their own from 
him, and their utterances in debate betray radical mis- 
apprehension of military considerations. 

Among the incidents attendant upon the embargo was 
the continuance abroad of a number of American vessels, 
which were there at the passage of the Act. They re- 
mained, willing exiles, to share the constant employment 
and large freights which the sudden withdrawal of their 
compatriots had opened to British navigation. They 
were doubtless joined by many of those which received 
permission to sail in quest of American property. One 
flagrant instance of such abuse of privilege turned up at 
Leghorn, with a load of tropical produce ; ^ and the com- 
ments above quoted from an Havana letter doubtless de- 
pended upon that current acquaintance with facts which 
men in the midst of affairs pick up. It was against this 
class of traders specifically that Napoleon launched the 
Ba3^onne Decree, April 17, 1808. Being abroad contrary 
to the law of the United States, he argued, was a clear 
indication that they were not American, but British in 

1 "The schooner 'John,' Clayton, from La Guayra, with two hundred 
thousand pounds of coffee, hns been .seized at Leghorn, and it was expected 
wouhl be condemned under the Bayouiie Decree. The 'John' sailed from 
lialtimore for La Guayra, by permission, under the fourth supplementary 
Embargo Act. By some means or other she found her way to Leghorn, 
where it was vainly hoped she might safely dispose of her cargo." (N. Y. 
Evening Post, Dec. 20, 1808.) "The frigate 'Chesapeake,' Captaiu Decatur, 
cruising in support of the embargo, captured off Block Island the brig 
' .Mount Vernon ' and the ship 'John ' loaded with provisions. Of these the 
former, at least, is expressly stated to have cleared ' in ballast,' by permis- 
sion." (Ibid., Aug. 15, 1808.) 



204 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

disguise. This they were not; but they were carrying 
on trade under the Orders in Council, and often under 
British convoy.^ The fact was noteworthy, as bearing 
upon the contention of the United States Government 
soon after, that the Non-Intercourse Law was adequate 
security for the action of American merchant vessels; a 
grotesque absurdity, in view of the embargo experiences. 
That it is not consonant with national self-esteem to 
accept foreign assistance to carry out national laws is 
undeniable; but it is a step further to expect another 
nation to accept, as assured, the efficiency of an authority 
notoriously and continually violated by its own su])jects. 

Under the general conditions named, the year 1808 wore 
on to its close. Both the British Orders in Council and 
the Decrees of the French Emperor continued in force and 
received execution ; ^ but so far as the United States was 

1 Two or three quotations are sufficient to illustrate a condition notorious 
at tlie time. "Jamaica. Nine Americans came Avith the June fleet, [from 
England] with full cargoes. At first it was thought these vessels would not 
he allowed to take cargoes, [because contrary to Navigation Act] ; hut a little 
reflection taught the Government hetter. Uum is the surplus crop of Jamaica, 
and to keep on hand tliat which they do not want is too much our way [i. c. 
cnihargo]. The British admiral granted these vessels convoy without hesita- 
tion, which saved them from five to seven and one half percent in insurance." 
(N. Y. Evening Post, Aug. 2, 1808.) " Gihraltar. A large numher of Amer- 
ican vessels are in these seas, sailing under license from Great Britain, to and 
from ports of Spain, without interruption. Our infornumt sailed in company 
with eight or ten, laden with wine and fruit for England." (Ihid., June 30.) 
Senator Hillhouse, of Connecticut : " Many of our vessels which were out 
when the embargo was laid have remained out. They have been navigating 
under tlie American flag, and have been constantly employed, at vast profit." 
(Annals of Congress, 1808, p. 172.) 

2 "At (iil)raltar, between January 1 and April 15, eight vessels were sent in 
for breach of tlie Orders, of whicli seven were condemned." (N. Y. Evening 
I'ost, May 2,'), 1808.) "Baltimore, Sept. .'JO. 1808. Arrived brig. 'Sophia' 
from Rotterdam, July 28, via Harwicli, P'ngland. Boarded by British l)rig 
' riiosphorus,' and ordered to England. After arrival, cargo [of gin] gauged, 
and a duty exacted of eight pence sterling per gallon. Allowed to proceed, 
with a license, after paying duty. In company with the ' Sophia,' and sent 
in with her, were tliree vessels bound for New York, with similar cargoes." 
(Ibid., Oct. 3.) " American ship 'Othello,' from New York for Nantes, with 
assorted cargo. Ship, with tliirty hogsheads of sugar condemned on ground 
of violating blockade ; " i.e. Orders in Council. (Naval Chronicle, vol. xx. p. 62.) 



FROM THE ORDERS IX COUNCIL TO WAR 205 

concerned their effect was much limited, the embargo re- 
taining at home the greater part of the nation's shipping. 
The vessels which had remained abroad, and still more 
those which escaped by violation of the law, or abuse of 
the permission to sail unloaded to bring back American 
property, for the most part purchased immunity by acquies- 
cence in the British Orders. They accepted British licenses, 
and British convoy also, where expedient. It was stated in 
Congress that, of those which went to sea under permission, 
comparatively few were interrupted by British cruisers. ^ 
Napoleon's condemnations went on apace, and in the 
matter of loss, — waiving questions of principle, — were 
at this moment a more serious grievance than the British 
Orders. Nor could it be said that the grounds upon 
which he based his action were less arbitrary or unjust. 
The Orders in Council condemned a vessel for sailing for 
an enemy's port, because constructively blockaded — a 
matter as to which at least choice was free; the Milan 
Decree condemned because visited by a British cruiser, 
to avoid which a merchant ship was powerless. The 
American brig " Vengeance " sailed from Norfolk before 
the embargo was laid, for Bilboa, then a port in alliance 

Besides the ' Othello ' there are two other cases, turning on the Orders, by 
compliance or evasion. From France came numerous letters announcing 
condemnations of vessels, because boarded by British cruisers. (N. Y. Even- 
ing Post, Sept. 10, Oct. 5, Oct. 27, Dec. 6, Dec. 10, 1808; March 17, 1809.) 
Proceedings were sometimes even more peremptory. More than one Ameri- 
can vessel, thougli neutral, was burned or sunk at sea, as amenable ujjder 
Napoleon's decrees. (Ibid., Nov. 3 and Nov. 5, Dec. 10, 1808.) See also affi- 
davits in the case of the " Brutus," burned, and of the "Bristol Packet," 
scuttled. (Ibid., April 5 and April 7, 1808 ) 

1 Hillhouse in the Senate (Annals of Congress, 1808, p. 172), and Cook, 
of Massachusetts, in the House. " Of about five hundred and ninety which 
sailed, only eight or ten have been captured." (Ibid., 1808-09, p. 1250.) Yet 
many went to Giiadaloupe and other forbidden French islands. At Saint 
Pierre, Martinicpie, in the middle of September, were nearly ninety American 
vessels. "Flour, wliich had been up to fifty dollars per barrel, fell to thirty 
dollar.s, in consequence of the number of arrivals from America." (N. Y. 
Evening Post, Sept. 20, 1808.) This shows how tlie permission to sail " in 
ballast " was abused. 



206 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

witli Fnuicc. On the passage the British frigate " Iris " 
boarded her, and indorsed on her papers that, in accord- 
ance with the orders of November 11, she must not pro- 
ceed. That night the "Vengeance" gave the cruiser 
the sli^), and i)ursued her course. She was captured off 
Bilboa by a French vessel, sent in as a prize, and con- 
dennied l)ecause of the frigate's visit. ^ This case is not- 
able because of the })ure a})plication of a single principle, 
not obscured by other incidental circumstances, as often 
happens. The brig "George," equally bound to Bilboa, 
after visitation by a British vessel had been to Falmouth, 
and there received a British license to go to her destina- 
tion. She was condemned for three offenses: the visit, 
the entrance to Falmouth, and the license.^ These cases 
were far from isolated, and quite as flagrant as anything 
done b}" Great Britain; but, while not overlooked, nor 
unresented, by the supporters of the embargo, there was 
not evident in the debates of Congress any such depth of 
feeling as was aroused by the British measures. As was 
said b}' ]\Ir. Bayard, an Opposition Senator, "It may be 
from the habit of enduring, but we do not feel an aggres- 
sion from France with the same quickness and sensibility 
that we do from England."^ 

Throughout the year 1808, the embargo was maintained 
by the Administration with as much vigor as was possible 
to the nature of the a(buinistrator, profoundly interested in 
the success of a favorite measure. Congress had supple- 
mented the brief original Act by a prohibition of all in- 
tercourse with foreign territories by land, as well as by 
sea. This was levelled at the Florida and Canada fron- 
tiers. Authority had been given also for the absolute 
detention of all vessels bound coastwise, if with cargoes 
exciting suspicion of intention to evade the laws. Part 

1 N. Y. Eveniiiiij Post, Sej)!. 7, 1808. 
■■' Annals uf Cotigross, 1808-09, p. 406. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 207 

of the small navy was sent to cruise off the coast, and the 
gunboats were distributed among the maritime districts, to 
intercei)t and to enforce submission. Steps were takeu to 
build vessels on Lakes Ontario and Champhiin ; for, in 
the undeveloped condition of the road systems, these 
sheets of water were principal means of transportation, 
after snow left the ground. To the embargo the Navy 
owed the brig "Oneida," the most formidable vessel on 
Ontario when war came. All this restrictive service was 
of course extremely unpopular with the inhabitants; or 
at least with that active, assertive element, which is 
foremost in pushing local advantages, and directs popu- 
lar sentiment. Nor did feeling in all cases refrain from 
action. April 19, the President had to issue a proclama- 
tion against combinations to defy the law in the country 
about Champlain. The collector at Passamaquoddy wrote 
that, with upwards of a hundred vessels in port, he was 
powerless; and the mol) threatened to burn his house. ^ 
A Kennebec paper doubted wliether civil society could 
hang together much longer. There were few places in 
the region where it was safe for civil officers to execute 
the laws.i Troops and revenue vessels were despatched 
to the chief centres of disturbance; but, while occasional 
rencounteis occurred, attended at times with bloodshed, 
and some captures of smuggled goods were effected, the 
weak arm of the Government was practicall}- powerless 
against universal corniivance in the disaffected districts. 
Smuggling still continued to a large extent, and was 
very profitable ; while the determination of the smugglers 
assumed the character commonly styled desperate. 

Such conditions, with a falling revenue, and an Oj^posi- 
tion strong in sectional support, confronted the supporters 
of the Administration when Congress again met in No- 
vember. Confident that embargo was an efficient coercive 

1 N. Y. Evening Post, :\Iay 4 and 1.3, 1808. 



208 ANTECEDEyrS OF THE WAR 

weapon, if relentlessly wielded, the President wished more 
searching enactments, and power for more extensive and 
vigorous enforcement. This Congress proceeded to grant. 
Additional revenue cutters were authorized ; and after long 
debate was passed an Act for the iMiforcement of the Em- 
bargo, approved January 9, 1809.^ The details of this 
law were derived from a letter - addressed to a Committee 
of Congress by Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
upon whom the administration of the embargo system 
chiefly fell. The two principal difficulties so far encount- 
ered were the evasions of vessels bound coastwise, and 
departure without clearance. " The infractions thus prac- 
tised threaten to prostrate the law and the Government 
itself." Even to take cargo on board should not be per- 
mitted, without authorization from the collector of the 
district. " The great number of vessels now laden and in 
a state of readiness to depart shows the necessity of this 
provision." 

It was therefore enacted that no vessel, coasting or 
registered, should load, without first having obtained 
permission from the custom-house, and given bond, in 
six times the value of the cargo, that she would not 
depart without a clearance, nor after clearing go to any 
foreign port, or transfer her lading to any other vessel. 
The loading was to be under the inspection of revenue 
officers. Ships already loaded, when notice of the Act 
was received, must unload or give bonds. Further to 
insure compliance, vessels bound coastwise must, 'within 
two montlis after sailing, deposit with the collector at the 
port of clearance a certificate from the collector at the port 
of destination, that they had arrived there. If going to 
New Orleans from the Atlantic coast, four months were 
allowed for this formality. Failing this, proof of total 

1 For the text of the Act see Annals uf Congress, lSOS-09, pp. 1798-1803. 

2 Ibid., p. 233. 



\ 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 209 

loss at sea would alone relieve the bond. " Neither capture, 
distress, nor any other accident, shall be pleaded or given 
in evidence." Collectors were empowered to take into 
custody specie and goods, whether on vessels or land vehi- 
cles, when there was reason to believe them intended for 
exportation; and authority was given to employ the army 
and navy, and the militia, for carrying out this and tlie 
other embargo legislation. A further provision of thirty 
armed vessels, to stop trade, was made by this Congress ; 
which otherwise, like its predecessors and successors, was 
perfectly faithful to the party tradition not to protect trade, 
or seek peace, by providing a navy. 

All this was sitting on the safety valve. However un- 
flattering to national self-esteem it might be to see national 
legislation universally disregarded, the leakage of steam 
by evasion had made the tension bearable. The Act also 
opened to a number of subaltern executive officers, of un- 
certain discretion, an opportunity for arbitrary and capri- 
cious action, to which the people of the United States 
were unaccustomed. Already a justice of a circuit court 
had decided in opposition to instructions issued by the 
President himself. The new legislation was followed by 
an explosion of popular wrath and street demonstrations. 
These were most marked in the Eastern states, where the 
opposition party and the shipping interest were strongest. 
Feeling was the more bitter, because the revolt of Spain, 
and the deliverance of Portugal, had exempted those na- 
tions and their extensive colonies from the operation of 
the British Orders in Council, had paralyzed in many of 
their ports the edicts of Napoleon, and so had extended 
widely the field safe for neutral commerce. It was evident 
also that, while the peninsula everywhere was the scene of 
war, it could not feed itself; nor could supplies for the 
population, or for the British armies there, come from Eng- 
land, often narrowly pressed herself for grain. Cadiz was 

vol.. I. --U 



210 ANTECEDEXTS OF THE WAR 

open on August 26 ; all neutrals admitted, and the British 
blockade raised. Through that portal and Lisbon might 
flow a golden tide for American farmers and shipmen. The 
town meetings of New England again displayed the power 
for prompt political agitation which so impressed the imagi- 
nation of Jefferson. The Governor of Connecticut refused, 
on constitutional grounds, to comply with the President's 
request to detail officers of militia, to whom collectors could 
apply when needing assistance to enforce the laws. The 
attitude of the Eastern people generally was that of mu- 
tiny ; and it became evident that it could only be repressed 
by violence, and with danger to the Union. 

Congress was not prepared to run this risk. On Fel)- 
ruary 8, less than a month after the Enforcement Act 
became law, its principal supporter in the Senate ^ intro- 
duced a resolution for the partial repeal of the Embargo 
Act. "This is not of my choice," he said, "nor is the 
step one by which I could wish that my responsibility 
should be tested. It is the offspring of conciliation, and 
of great concession on my part. On one point we are 
agreed, — ■ resistance to foreign aggressions. The points 
of difficulty to be adjusted, — and compromised, — relate 
to the extent of that resistance and the mode of its ap- 
plication. In my judgment, if public sentiment could be 
brought to support them, wisdom would dictate tlie com- 
bined measures of embargo, non-intercourse, and war. 
Sir, when the love of peace degenerates into fear of war, 
it becomes of all passions the most despicable." It was 
not the first time the word "War " had been spoken, but 
the occasion made it doubly significant and ominous; for 
it was the requiem of the measure upon which the domi- 
nant party had staked all to avoid war, and the elec- 
tions had already declared that power should remain in 
the same hands for at least two years to come. Within 

1 Giles of Virginia. Aniiais of Congress, 1808-09, pp. 35.3-381. 



FRO^[ THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 211 

four weeks Madison was to succeed his leader, Jefferson ; 
with a Congressional majority, reduced indeed, but still 
adequate. 

The debate over the new measure, known as the Non- 
Intercourse Act, was prolonged and heated, abounding in 
recriminations, ranging over the whole gamut of foreign 
injuries and domestic misdoings, whether by Government 
policy or rebellious action; but clearer and clearer the 
demand for war was heard, through and above the din. 
"When the late intelligence from the nortlieast reached 
us," said an emotional follower of the Administration, ^ 
"it bore a character most distressful to every man who 
valued the integrity of the Government. Choosing not 
to enforce the law with the bayonet, I thought proper to 
acknowledge to the House that I was ready to abandon 
the embargo. . . . The excitement in the East renders it 
necessary that we should enforce it by the bayonet, or 
repeal. I will repeal, and could weep over it more than 
over a lost child." There was, he said, nothing now but 
war. "The very men who now set your laws at defi- 
ance," cried another, "will be against you if you go to 
war;" but he added, "I will never let go the embargo, 
unless on the very same day on which we let it go, we 
draw the sword. "^ 

Josiah Quincy, an extremist on the other side, gave a 
definition of the position of Massachusetts, which from 
his ability, and his known previous course on national 
questions, is particularly valuable. In the light of the 
past, and of what was then future, it may be considered 
to embody the most accurate summary of the views pre- 
vailing in New England, from the time of the " Chesa- 
peake " affair to tlie war. He " wished a negotiation to 
be opened, unshackled with the impedimenta which now 

1 Williams of South Carolina. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 1236. 

2 Nelson of Maryland. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 1258. 



212 AXTECEDENTS OF THE WAIi 

exist. As long as they remained, people in the part of 
the country whence he came would not deem an unsuc- 
cessful attempt at negotiation cause for war. If they were 
removed, and an earnest attempt at negotiation made, 
unimpeded by these restrictions, and should not meet 
w'ith success, they would join heartily in a war. They 
w^ould not, however, go to war to contest the right of 
Great Britain to search American vessels for British sea- 
men; for it was the general opinion with them that, if 
American seamen were encouraged, there would he no 
need for the employment of foreign seamen." ^ Quincy 
therefore condemned the retaliatory temper of the Admin- 
istration, as shown in the " Chesapeake " incident by the 
proclamation excluding British ships of war, and in the 
embargo as a reply to the Orders in Council. The oppres- 
sion of American trade, culminating in the Orders, was a 
just cause of war; but war was not expedient before a 
further attempt at negotiation, favored by a withdrawal of 
all retaliatory acts. He was willing to concede the exer- 
cise of British authority on board American merchantmen 
on the high seas. 

In the main these were the coincident opinions of 
Monroe, although a Virginian and identified with the 
opposite party. At this time he wrote to Jefferson pri- 
vately, urging a special mission, for which he offered his 
services. " Our affairs are evidently at a pause, and the 
next step to l)e taken, without an unexpected change, 
seems likely to be the commencement of war with both 
France and Great Britain, unless some expedient con- 
sistent with the honor of the Government and Country 
is adopted to prevent it." To Jefferson's rejection of 
the proposition he replied: "I have not the hope you 
seem still to entertain that our differences with either 
Power wuU be accommodated under existing arrange- 

1 Aunals of Congress, 1808-0!), pp. 1438-1439. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 213 

ments# The embargo was not likely to accomplish the 
desired effect, if it did not produce it under the first 
impression. . . . Without evidence of firm and strong 
union at home, nothing favorable to us can be expected 
abroad, and from the symptoms in the Eastern states there 
is much cause to fear that tranquillity cannot be secured 
at present by adherence only to . the measures which 
have heretofore been pursued." ^ Monroe had already ^ 
expressed the opinion — not to Jefferson, who had refused 
to ratify, but to a common intimate — - that had the treaty 
of December 31, 1806, signed by himself and Pinkney, 
been accepted by the Administration, none of the subse- 
quent troubles with France and Great Britain would have 
ensued; that not till the failure of accommodation with 
Great Britain became known abroad was there placed 
upon the Berlin Decree that stricter interpretation whicli 
elicited the Orders in Council, whence in due sequence 
the embargo, the Eastern commotions, and the present 
alarming outlook. In principle, Quincy and Monroe dif- 
fered on the impressment question, but in practical ad- 
justment there was no serious divergence. In other points 
they stood substantially together. 

Under the combined influences indicated by the expres- 
sions quoted. Congress receded rapidly from the extreme 
measures of domestic regulation embodied in the vari- 
ous Embargo Acts and culminating in that of January 
9. The substitute adopted was pronouncedly of the 
character of foreign policy, and assumed distinctly and 
unequivocally the hostile form of retaliation upon the 
two countries under the decrees of which American com- 
merce was suffering. It foreshadowed the general line of 
action followed by the approaching new Administration, 

1 Monroe to Jefferson, Jan. 18 and Feb. 2, 1809. Monroe's Works, vol. v. 
pp. 91, 9.3-9.5. 

2 To Juhn Taylor, January 9. Ibid., p. 89. 



214 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

with whose views and i)iirposes it dovibtk-ss coincided. 
Passed in the House on February 27, 1809, it was to go 
into effect May 20, after which date the ports of the 
United States were forbidden to the ships of war of both 
France and Great Britain, except in cases of distress, or 
of vessels bearing despatches. jSIerchant vessels of the 
two countries were similarly excluded, with a provision 
for seizure, if entering. Importation from any part of the 
dominions of those states was prohibited, as also that 
of any merchandise therein produced. Under these con- 
ditions, and with these exceptions, the embargo was to 
stand repealed from March 15 following; but American 
and other merchant vessels, sailing after the Act went 
into operation, were to be under bonds not to proceed to 
any port of Great Britain or France, nor during absence 
to engage in any trade, direct or indirect, with such port. 
From the general character of these interdictions, stopping 
both navigation and commerce between the United States 
and the countries proscribed, this measure was commonly 
called the Non-Intercourse Act. Its stormy passage through 
the House was marked by a number of amendments and 
proposed substitutes, noticeable principally as indicative 
of the growth of warlike temjjer among Southern mem- 
bers. There were embodied with the bill the admin- 
istrative and police clauses necessary for its enforcement. 
Finally, as a weapon of negotiation in the hands of the 
Government, there w^as a provision, corresponding to one 
in the original Embargo Act, that in case either France 
or Great Britain should so modify its measures as to cease 
to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, the 
President was autliorized to proclaim the fact, after which 
trade with that countr}' might be renewed. In this shape 
the bill was returned to the Senate, which concurred Feb- 
ruary 28. Next day it became law, by the President's 
sisrnature. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 215 

The Enforcement Act and the Non-Intercourse Act, 
taken together and in their rapid sequence, symbolize 
the death struggle between Jefferson's ideal of peaceful 
commercial restriction, unmitigated and protracted, in the 
power of which he had absolute faith, and the views of 
those to whom it was simply a means of diplomatic pres- 
sure, temjjorary, and antecedent to war. Napoleon him- 
self was not more ruthless than Jefferson in his desired 
application of commercial prohibition. Not so his part}^, 
in its entirety. The leading provisions of the Non-Inter- 
course Act, by partially opening the door and so facilitat- 
ing abundant evasion, traversed Jefferson's plan. It was 
antecedently notorious that their effect, as regarded Great 
Britain, would be to renew trade with her by means of 
intermediary ports. Yet that they were features in the 
policy of the men about to become prominent under the 
coming Administration Avas known to Canning some time 
before the resolution was introduced by Giles ; before the 
Enforcement Act even could reach England. Though 
hastened by the outburst in New England, the policy of 
the Non-Intercourse Act was conceived before the collapse 
of Jefferson's own measure was seen to be imminent. 

On January 18 and 22 Canning, in informal conversa- 
tions with Pinkne}^ had expressed his satisfaction at pro- 
ceedings in Congress, recently become known, looking to 
the exclusion of French ships equally with British, and 
to the extension of non-importation legislation to France 
as well as Great Britain.^ He thought that such meas- 
ures might open the way to a withdrawal of the Orders 
in Council, by enabling the British Government to enter- 
tain the overture, made by Pinkney August 23, under in- 
structions, that the President would suspend the embargo, 
if the British Government would repeal its ordei-s. This 

1 Pinkney, iu counection with these, speaks of tlie " expected " Act of 
Congress. American State Papers, Foreign Eelatious, vol. iii. p. 299. 



216 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

lie conceived could not be done, consistently with self- 
respect, so long as there was inequality of treatment. In 
these anticipations he was encouraged by representations 
concerning the attitude of Madison and some intended 
members of his Cabinet, made to him by Erskine, the 
British INIinister in Washington, who throughout seems 
to have cherished an ardent desire to reconcile differences 
which interfered with his just appreciation even of writ- 
ten words, — much more of spoken. 

In the interview of the 22d Pinkney confined him- 
self to saying everything "which I thought consistent with 
candor and discretion to confirm him in his dispositions." 
He suggested that the whole matter ought to be settled at 
Washington, and " that it would be well (in case a sjaecial 
mission did not meet their approbation) that the necessary 
powers should be sent to Mr. Erskine." ^ He added, "I 
oifered my intervention for the purpose of guarding them 
against deficiencies in these powers." ^ The remark is 
noteworthy, for it shows Pinkney's sense that Erskine's 
mere letter of credence as Minister Resident, not supple- 
mented by full powers for the special transaction, was 
inadequate to a binding settlement of such important 
matters. In the sequel the American Administration did 
not demand of Erskine the production either of special 
powers or of the text of his instructions; a routine for- 
malit}' which would have forestalled the mortifying error 
into which it was betrayed by precipitancy, and which 
became the occasion of a breach with Erskine's successor. 

The day after his interview with Pinkney, Canning sent 
Erskine insti'uctions,^ the starting-point of wdiich was that 
the Orders in Council must be maintained, unless their ob- 
ject could be otherwise accomplished. Assuming, as an 
indispensable preliminary to any negotiation, that equality 

1 American State Papers, Forcion I\clations, vol iii. p. 299. 

2 This sentence was omitted in the papers wlien submitted to Congress. 
^ State Tapers, ]). 300. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 217 

of treatment between British and French shijjs and mer- 
chandise would have been established, he said he under- 
stood further from Erskine's reports of conversations that 
the leading men in the new Administration would be pre- 
pared to agree to three conditions: 1. That, contemporane- 
ously with the withdrawal of the Orders of January 7 and 
November 11, there would be a removal of the restrictions 
upon Britisli ships and merchandise, leaving in force those 
against French. 2. The claim, to carry on with enemies' 
colonies a trade not permitted in peace, would be aban- 
doned for this war. o. Great Britain should be at liberty 
to secure the operation of the Non-Intercourse measures, 
still in effect against France, by the action of the British 
Navy, which should be autliorized to capture American 
vessels seeking to enter ports forbidden them by the Non- 
Intercourse Act. Canning justly remarked that otherwise 
Non-Intercourse would be nugatory; there would be noth- 
ing to prevent Americans from clearing for England or 
Spain and going to Holland or France. This was per- 
fectly true. Not only had a year's experience of the 
embargo so demonstrated, but a twelvemonth later ^ Gal- 
latin had to admit that "" the summary of destinations of 
these exports, being grounded on clearances, cannot be 
relied on under existing circumstances. Thus, all the 
vessels actually destined for the dominions of Great 
Britain, which left the United States between April 19 
and June 10, 1809, cleared for other ports; princi})ally, 
it is believed, for Sweden." Nevertheless, the proposi- 
tion that a foreign state should enforce national laws, 
because the United States herself could not, was saved 
from being an insult only l)y the belief, extracted by 
Canning from Erskine's report of conversations, that 
Madison, or his associates, had committed themselves to 

1 Fehruary 7, 1810. American State Papers, Commerce aud Navigation, 

vol. i. 1). 812." 



218 AXTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

such an arrangement, lie added that Pinkney "recently 
(but for the first time)" had expressed an opinion to the 
same effect. 

The British Government woukl. consent to withdraw the 
Orders in Council on the conditions cited; and for the 
purpose of obtaining a distinct and official recognition 
of them, Canning authorized Erskine to read his letter 
in extenso to the American Government. Had this been 
done, as the three concessions were a sine qua non^ the 
misunderstanding on which the despatch was based would 
have been at once exposed; and while its assumptions 
and tone could scarcely have failed to give offence, there 
would have been saved the successive emotions of satis- 
faction and disappointment which swept over the United 
States, leaving bitterness worse than before. Instead of 
communicating Canning's letter, Erskine, after ascer- 
taining that the conditions would not be accepted, sent 
in a paraphrase of his own, dated April 18,^ in w^hich 
he made no mention of the three stipulations, but an- 
nounced that, in consequence of the impartial attitude 
resulting from the Non-Intercourse Act, his Majesty would 
send a special envoy to conclude a treaty on all points of 
the relations between the two countries, and meanwhile 
would be willing to withdraw the Orders of January 7 and 
November 11, so far as affecting the United States, in the 
persuasion that the President would issue the proclama- 
tion restoring intercourse. This advance was welcomed, 
the assurance of revocation given, and the next day 
Erskine wrote that he was " authorized to declare that 
the Orders will have been withdrawn as respects the 
United States on the 10th day of June next." The 
same day, by apparent preconcertment, in accordance 
with Canning's requirement that the two acts should be 

^ The correspomlonce between Erskine and tlie Secretary of State on this 
occasion is in American State Papers, Foreign Kehitions, vol. iii. jtp. 295-297. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 219 

coincident, Mudison issued his proclamation, announcing 
the fact of the future withdrawal, and that trade between 
the United States and Great Britain might be renewed on 
June 10. 

Erskine's proceeding was disavowed instantly by the 
British Government, and himself recalled. A series of 
unpleasant explanations followed between him and the 
members of the American Government,^ astonished by 
the interpretation placed upon their words, as shown in 
Canning's despatch. Canning also had to admit that he 
had strained Erskine's words, in reaching his conclusions 
as to the willingness of Madison and his advisers to allow 
the enforcement of the Non-Intercourse Act by British 
cruisers ; ^ while Pinkney entirely disclaimed intending 
any such opinion as Canning imagined him to have ex- 
pressed.-^ The British Secretary was further irritated by 
the tone of the American replies to Erskine's notes; but he 
" forbore to trouble " ^ Pinkney with any comment upon 
them. That would be made through Erskine's successor; 
an unhappy decision, as it proved. No explanation of the 
disavowal was given ; but the instructions sent were read 
to Pinkney by Canning, and a letter followed saying that 
Erskine's action had been in direct contradiction to them. 
Things thus returned to the momentarily interrupted con- 
dition of American Non-Intercourse and British Orders in 
Council ; the British Government issuing a temporary order 
for the protection of American vessels which might have 
started for the ports of Holland in reliance upon Erskine's 
assurances. From America there had been numerous clear- 
ances for England ; and it may be believed that there would 
have been many more if the transient nature of the oppor- 
tunity had been foreseen. August 9, Madison issued an- 
other proclamation, annulling the former. 

^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 304-308. 
2 Ibid., p. 303. 3 Ibid. * Ibid., p. 301. 



220 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

While Erskiiie was conducting his side negotiation, the 
British Government had hxrgely modified the scope of the 
restrictions laid upon neutral trade. In consec^uence of 
the various events which had altered its relations with 
European states and their de[)endencies, the Orders of No- 
vember, 1807, were revoked; and for them was substituted 
a new one, dated April 26, 1809,^ similar in principle biit 
much curtailed in extent. Only the coasts of France itself, 
of Holland to its boundary, the River Ems, and those of 
Italy falling under Napoleon's own dominion, from Orbi- 
tello to Pesaro, were tlienceforth to be subject to " the 
same restrictions as if actually blockaded.'' Further, no 
permission was given, as in the former Orders, to communi- 
cate with the forbidden- ports by first entering one of Great 
Britain, paying a transit duty, and obtaining a permit to 
proceed. In terms, jjrohibition was now unqualified ; and 
although it was known that licenses for intercourse with 
interdicted harbors were freel}' issued, the overt offence 
of prescribing British channels to neutral navigation was 
avoided. Within the area of restriction, "No trade save 
through England " was thus couA^erted, in form, to no 
trade at all. This narrowing of the constructive block- 
ade system, combined witli the relaxations effected by 
the Non-Intercourse Act, and with the food require- 
ments of the Spanish peninsula, did much to revive Ameri- 
can commerce; which, however, did not again before the 
war regain the fair proportions of the j-ears preceding 
the embargo. The discrepancy was most marked in the 
re-exportation of foreign tropical produce, sugar and coffee, 
a trade dependent wholly upon war conditions, and affect- 
ing chiefl}' the shipping interest engaged in carrying it. 
For this falling off there were several causes. After 
1809 the Continental system was more than ever remorse- 
lessly enforced, and it was to the Continent almost wholly 

1 American State Papers, Foreign delations, vol. iii. j). 241. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 221 

that Americans had carried these articles. The Spanish 
colonies were now open to I>ritish as well as American 
customers; and the last of the French West Indies hav- 
ing passed into British possession, trade Avith them was 
denied to foreigners by the Navigation Act. In 1807 the 
value of the colonial produce re-exported from the United 
States was -$59, 643, 558; in 1811, -$16,022,790. The ex- 
2)orts of domestic productions in the same years were: 
1807, 148,699,592; in 1811, 145,294,043. In connection 
with these figures, as significant of political conditions, it 
is interesting to note that of the latter sum -118,266,466 
went to Spain and Portugal, chiefly to supply demands 
created by war. So with tropical produce; out of the 
total of $16,022,790, $5,772,572 went to the Peninsula, 
and an equal amount to the Baltic, that having become 
the centre of accumulation, from which subsequent distri- 
bution was made to the Continent in elusion of the Conti- 
nental System. The increasing poverty of the Continent, 
also, under Napoleon's merciless suppression of foreign 
commerce, greatly lessened the purchasing power of the 
inhabitants. The great colonial trade had wasted under 
the combined action of British Orders and French Decrees, 
supplemented by changes in political relations. The re- 
mote extremities of the Baltic lands and the Spanish 
peninsula now alone sustained its drooping life. 

Coincident with Erskine's recall had been the appoint- 
ment of his successor, Mr. Francis J. Jackson, who took 
with him not only the usual credentials, but also full 
powers for concluding a treaty or convention.^ He de- 
parted for his post under the impulse of the emotions 
and comments excited by the manner and terms in 
which Erskine's advances had been met, with which 
Canning had forborne to trouble Pinkney. Upon his 
arrival in Washington, di8a})pointment was expressed that 
^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 318. 



222 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

he had no authority to give any explanations of the rea- 
sons why his Government had disavowed arrangements, 
entered into by Erskine, concerning not only the with- 
drawal of the Orders in Council, — as touching the 
United States, — but also the reparation for the " Chesa- 
peake " business. This Erskine had offered and con- 
cluded, coincidently with the revocation of the Orders, 
though not in connection with it; but in both instances 
his action was disapproved by his Government. After 
two verbal conferences, held Avithin a week of Jackson's 
arrival, the Secretary of State, Mr. Robert Smith, notified 
him on October 9 that it was thought expedient, for the 
present occasion, that further communication on this matter 
should be in writing. There followed an exchange of let- 
ters, which in such circumstances passed necessarily under 
the eyes of President Madison, who for the eight preced- 
ing years had held Smith's present office. 

This correspondence ^ presents an interesting exhibition 
of diplomatic fencing; but beyond the discussion, pro 
and con, of the matters in original and continuous dis- 
pute between the two countries, the issue turned upon 
the question whether the United States had received the 
explanation due to it, — in right and courtes}-, — of the 
reasons for disavowing Erskine's agreements. Smith 
maintained it had not. Jackson rejoined that sufficient 
explanation had been given by the terms of Canning's 
letter of May 27 to Pinkney, announcing that Erskine 
had been recalled because he had acted in direct contra- 
diction to his instructions; an allegation sustained by 
reading to the American minister the instructions them- 
selves. In advancing this argument, Jackson stated also 
that Canning's three conditions had been made known by 
Erskine to the American Government, which, in declining 
to admit them, had suggested substitutes iinallj' accepted 

1 American State I'aper.s, Foreign delations, vol. iii. pj). 308-319. 




JAMES MADISON. 

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart in Soudoin College, Bnmswiek, Me. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 223 

by Erskine ; so that the United States iiiiderstood that the 
arrangement was reached on another basis than that laid 
down by Canning. This assertion he drew from the ex- 
pressions of Erskine in a letter to Canning, after the 
disavowal. Smith replied that Erskine, while not show- 
ing the despatch, had stated the three stipulations; that 
they had been rejected ; and that the subsequent arrange- 
ment had been understood to be with a minister fully com- 
petent to recede from his first demand and to accept other 
conditions. Distinctly he affirmed, that the United States 
Government did not know, at any time during the dis- 
cussion preceding the agreement, that Erskine 's powers 
were limited by the conditions in the text of his instruc- 
tions, afterwards published. That he had no others, "is 
now for the first time made known to this Government," 
by Jackson's declaration. 

Jackson had come prepared to maintain, not only tlie 
British contention, but the note set by Canning for British 
diplomatic correspondence. He was conscious too of op- 
posing material force to argument, and had but recently 
been amid the scenes at Copenhagen, which had illus- 
trated Nelson's maxim that a fleet of ships of the line 
were the best negotiators in Europe. The position has 
its advantages, but also its dangers, when the field of 
warfare is that of words, not deeds; and in Madison, 
who superintended the American case, he was unequally 
matched with an advereary whose natural dialectical abil- 
ity had been tempered and sharpened in many campaigns. 
There is noticeable, too, on the American side, a labored 
effort at acuteness of discrimination, an adroitness to exag- 
gerate shades of difference practically imperceptible, and 
an aptitude to give and take offence, not so evident under 
the preceding Administration. These suggest irresistibly 
the absence, over Madison the President, of a moderating 
hand, which had been held over Madison the Secretary of 



224 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

State. It may be due also to the fact that botli the Presi- 
dent and liis Cabinet were somewhat less indisposed to 
war than his predecessor had been. 

In his answer to Smith Jackson reiterated, what Smith 
had admitted, that Erskine had made known the three 
conditions. He added, "No stronger illustration of the 
deviation from them which occurred can be given than by 
a reference to the terms of the agreement." As an inci- 
dental comment, supporting the contention that Erskine's 
departure from his sole authorit}- was so decisive as to be 
a sufficient explanation for the disavowal of his procedure, 
the words were admissible ; so much so as to invite the 
suspicion that the opponent, who had complained of the 
want of such explanation, felt the touch of the foil, and 
somewhat lost temper. Whatever impression of an in- 
sinuation the phrase may have conveyed should have been 
wholly removed by the further expression, in close se- 
quence, " You are alread}- acquainted with the instruc- 
tion given; and / have had ^ the honor of informing you it 
was the only one." Smith's knowledge that Erskine's 
powers were limited to the one document is here at- 
tributed explicitly to Jackson. The Secretary (or Presi- 
dent) saw fit not to recognize this, but took occasion to 
administer a severe rebuke, which doubtless the general 
tone of Jackson's letter tended to provoke. "I abstain, 
sir, from making any particular animadversions on several 
irrelevant and improper allusions in your letter. . . . 
But it would be improper to conclude the few observa- 
tions to which I purposely limit m3'self, without adverting 
to your repetition of a language impljdng a knowledge, on 
the part of this Government, that the instructions of your 
predecessor did not authorize the arrangement formed by 
him. After the explicit and peremptory asseveration that 
this Government had no such knowledge, and that with 

1 Author's italics. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 225 

such a knowledge no such arrangement woukl have been 
entered into, the view which you have again presented of 
the subject makes it my duty to apprise you that such 
insinuations are inadmissible in the intercourse of a foreign 
minister with a Government that understands what it owes 
to itself." 

Whatever may be thought of the construction placed 
upon Jackson's words by his opponent, this thrust should 
have made him look to his footing; but arrogance and 
temper carried the day, and laid him open to the fatal 
return which he received. By drawing attention to the 
qualifying phrase, he could have shown that he had been 
misunderstood, but he practically accepted the interpre- 
tation; for, instead of repelling it, he replied: "In my 
correspondence with you I have carefully avoided draw- 
ing conclusions that did not necessarily follow from the 
premises advanced by me, and least of all should I think 
of uttering an insinuation where I was unable to substan- 
tiate a fact. To facts, such as I have become acquainted 
with them, I have scrupulously adhered, and in so doing 
I must continue, whenever the good faith of his Majesty's 
Government is called in question," etc. To this outburst 
the reply was : " You have used language which cannot 
but be understood as reiterating, and even aggravating, 
the same gross insinuation. It only remains, in order to 
preclude opportunities which are thus abused, to inform 
you that no further communications will be received from 
you, and that the necessity for this determination will, 
without delay, be made known to your Government." 
Jackson thereupon quitted Washington for New York, leav- 
ing a charge d'affaires for transacting current business. 

Before leaving the city, however, Jackson, through the 
channel of the charge., made a statement to the Secretary 
of State. In this he alleged that the facts which he con- 
sidered it his duty to state, and to the assertion of which, 

VOL. I. — 15 



226 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

as facts, exception was taken, and his dismissal attributed, 
were two. One was, that the three conditions had been 
submitted by ^Nlr. Erskine to the Secretary of State. This 
the Secretary liad admitted. "The other, namely: that 
that instruction is the only one, in which the conditions 
were prescribed to Mr. Erskine, for the conclasion of aa 
arrangement on the matter to which it related, is known 
to Mr. Jackson by the instructions which he has him- 
self received." This he had said in his second letter; if 
somewhat obscurely, still not so much so but that careful 
reading, and indisposition to take offence, coukl have de- 
tected his meaning, and afforded him the opportunity to 
be as explicit as in this final paper. If Madison, who is 
understood to have given special supervision to this cor- 
respondence, ^ meant the severe rebuke conveyed by his 
reply as a feint, to lead the British minister incautiously 
to expose himself to a punishment which his general bear- 
ing and that of his Government deserved, he assuredly 
succeeded ; yet it may be questioned who really came best 
out of the encounter. Jackson had blundered in words ; 
the American Administration had needlessly intensified 
international bitterness. 

Prepossession in reading, and proneness to angry miscon- 
ception, must be inferred in the conduct of the American 
side of this discussion ; for another notable and even graver 
instance occurs in the despatch ^ communicating Jackson's 
dismissal to Pinkney, beyond whose notice it probably was 
not allowed to go. Canning, in his third rejected con- 
dition, had written: 

Great Britain, for the purpose of securing the operation o/the 
embargo, and o/the bon^ fide intention of America to prevent 
her citizens from trading witli France, and the Powers adopt- 
ing and acting under the French decrees, is to be considered as 

^ See Madison's Works, vol. ii. p. 499. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iil. 319-322. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 227 

being at liberty to capture all such American vessels as shall 
be found attempting to trade with the ports of such Powers ; ^ 

and he explained that, unless such permission was granted, 
" the raising of the embargo nominally as to Great Britain, 
would raise it, in fact, with respect to all the world," owing 
to the evident inability of the United States to enforce its 
orders beyond its own ports. 

In the passage quoted, both the explanator}' comment 
and the syntax show that the object of this j)roposed con- 
cession was to secure the operation^ the effectual working, 
of the bond fide intention expressly conceded to the Ameri- 
can Government. The repetition of the prejjosition "of," 
before bond fide, secures this meaning beyond peradven- 
ture. Nevertheless Smith, in labored arraignment of the 
whole British course, wrote to Pinkney as follows: 

In urging this concession, Mr. Canning has taken a ground 
forbidden b}' those principles of decorum which regulate and 
mark the proceedings of Governments towards each other. In 
his despatch the condition is stated to be for the purpose of 
securing the bond fixJe ■intention of America, to prevent her 
citizens from trading with France and certain other Powers; 
in other words to secure a pledge to that effect against the 
mala fide intention of the United States. And this despatch 
too was authorized to be communicated t?i extenso to the Govern- 
ment, of which such language was used." 

Being addressed only to Pinkney, a man altogether too 
careful and shrewd not to detect the mistake, no occasion 
arose for this grave misstatement doing harm, or receiving 
correction. But, conjoined with the failure to note that 
Jackson in his second letter had attributed to his own 

1 The italics iu this quotation (American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 300) 
are introduced by the author, to draw attention to the words decisive to be 
noted. 

2 The italics are Smith's. They serve exactly, however, to illustrate just 
wherein consists the perverseness of omission (the words "operation of"), 
and the misstatement of this remarkable passage. 



228 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

communication the American Government's knowledge 
that Erskine had no alternative instructions, the conclu- 
sion is irresistible that the President acted, perhaps un- 
consciously, under impulses foreign to the deliberate care 
which should precede and accompany so momentous an act 
as the refusal to communicate with an accredited foreiou 
minister. It will be remembered that this action was 
taken on grounds avowedly independent of the reasonable- 
ness or justice of the British demands. It rested purely 
on the conduct of the minister himself. 

This incident powerfully furthered the alienation of the 
two nations, for the British Government not only refused 
to disapprove Jackson's conduct, but for nearly two years 
neglected to send a successor, thus establishing strained 
di])lomatic relations. Before finally leaving this unlucky 
business, it is due to a complete appreciation to men- 
tion that, in its very outset, at the beginning of Erskine 's 
well-meant but blundering attempt, the United States 
Government had overpassed the limits of diplomatic civil- 
ity. Canning was a master of insolence; he could go to 
the utmost verge of insult and innuendo, without abso- 
luteh^ crossing the line which separates them from formal 
observance of propriety; but it cannot be said that the 
American correspondence in this instance was equally 
adroit. In replying to Erskine's formal offer of repara- 
tion for the " Chesapeake " affair, certain points essen- 
tial to safeguarding the position of the United States 
were carefully and properly pointed out; then the repara- 
tion, as tended, was accepted. There the matter might 
have dropped; acceptance is acceptance; or, if necessary, 
failure of full satisfaction on the part of the United States 
might have been candidly stated, as due to itself. But 
the Secretary ^ proceeded to words — and mere words — 

^ Secretary Smith subsequently stated that this sentence was added liv 
express interposition of the President. (Smith's Address to the American 
people.) 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 229 

reflecting on the British Sovereign and Government. " I 
have it in express charge from the President to state, that, 
while he forbears to insist upon the further punishment 
of the offending officer, he is not the less sensible of the 
justice and utility of such an example, nor the less per- 
suaded that it would best comport with what is due from 
his Britannic Majesty to his own honor." 

To the writer nothing quite as bad as this occurs in 
Jackson's letters, objectionable as they were in tone. 
With the opinion he agrees; the further employment of 
Berkeley was indecent, nor was he a man for whom it 
could be claimed that he was indisj)ensable ; but it is one 
thing to hold an opinion, and another to utter it to the 
person concerned. Had Madison meant war, he might 
have spoken as he did, and fought; but to accept, and 
then to speak words barren of everything but useless 
insult, is intolerable. Jackson very probably believed 
that the American Government was lying when it said it 
did not know the facts as to Erskine's instructions. ^ It 
would be quite 4n character that he should; but he did 
not say so. There was put into his mouth a construction 
of his words which he heedlessly accepted. 

Jackson's dismissal was notified to tlie British Govern- 
ment through Pinkney, on January 2, 1810. ^ Some time 
before, a disagreement within the British Cabinet had led 
to a duel between Castlereagh and Canning, in which 
the latter was severely wounded. He did not return to 
the Foreign Office, but was succeeded by the Marquis 
Wellesley, brother of the future Duke of Wellington. 
After presenting the view of the correspondence taken 

1 Canning in his instructions to Jackson (No. 1, July 1, 1809, Foreign 
Office MSS.) wrote: "The United States cannot have believed that such an 
arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable to his in- 
structions. //' Mr. Erskine availed him.self of the liberty allowed to him of 
communicating those instructions in the affair of the Orders in Council, they 
must have knoicn that it was not so." Mv italics. 

- American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 3.52. 



230 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

by his Government, Pinkney seems to betray a slight 
uneasiness as to the accurac}^ of the interpretation placed 
on Jackson's words. "I willingly leave your Lordship 
to judge whether Mr. Jackson's correspondence will bear 
any other construction than that it in fact received ; and 
whether, supposing it to have been erroneously construed, 
his letter of the 4th of November should not have corrected 
the mistake, instead of confirming and establishing it." 

Wellesley, with a certain indolent nonchalance, char- 
acteristic of his correspondence with Pinkney, delayed 
to answer for two months, and then gave a reply as in- 
different in manner as it was brief in terms. Jackson had 
written, " There appears to have prevailed, throughout the 
whole of this transaction [Erskine's], a fundamental mis- 
take, which would suggest that his Majesty had proposed 
to propitiate the Government of the United States, to 
consent to the renewal of commercial intercourse; . . . 
as if, in any arrangement, his Majesty would condescend 
to barter objects of national policy and dignity for per- 
mission to trade with another country." The phrase 
was Canning's, and summarized precisely the jealous 
attitude towards its own prestige characteristic of the 
British policy of the day. It also defined exactly the 
theory upon which the foreign policy of the United States 
had been directed for eight years by the party still in 
power. Madison and Jefferson had both placed just this 
construction upon Ei-skine's tender. "The British Cabi- 
net must have changed its course under a full conviction 
that an adjustment with this country had become essen- 
tial." ^ "Gallatin had a conversation with Turreau at his 
residence near Baltimore. He professes to be confident 
that his Government will consider England broken down, 
by the examples she has given in repealing her Orders." ^ 

1 Writings of James Madison. Published by Order of Congress, 1865. 
Vol. ii. p. 439. 

^ Ibid., p. 440. Turreau was the French minister. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 231 

" By our unyielding adherence to principle Great Britain 
lias been forced into revocation." ^ Canning and his asso- 
ciates intuitively divined this inference, which after all 
was obvious enough. The feeling increased their discon- 
tent with Erskine, who had placed his country in the false 
light of receding under commercial pressure from America, 
and probably enough prepossessed them with the convic- 
tion that the American Government could not but have 
realized that Erskine was acting beyond his powers. 

Wellesley, after his manner, — which was not Can- 
ning's, — asserted equally the superiority of the British 
Government to concession for the sake of such advantage. 
His Majesty regretted the Jackson episode, the more so 
that no opportunity had been given for him to interpose, 
which "was the usual course in such cases." Mr. Jackson 
had written positive assurances that it was not his purpose 
to give offence; to which the reply was apt, that in such 
matters it is not enough to intend, but to succeed in avoid- 
ing offence."^ " His Majesty has not marked, with any ex- 
pression of his displeasure, the conduct of Mr. Jackson, 
who does not appear, on this occasion, to have committed 
any intentional offence against the Government of the 
United States." A charge would be appointed to carry 
on the ordinary intercourse, but no intention was expressed 
of sending another minister. Persistence in this neglect 
soon became a further ground of bad feeling. 

By its own limitations the Non-Intercourse Act was to 
expire at the end of the approaching spring session of the 
new Congress, but it was renewed by that body to the end 
of the winter session. During the recess the Jackson epi- 
sode occurred, and was the first subject to engage atten- 

1 Works of Jefferson, vol. v. pp. 442-445. 

2 " When Lord Wellesley's answer speaks of the offence imputed to Jack- 
son, it does not say he gave no such cause of offence, but simply relied on his 
repeated asseverations that he did not mean to offend." Pinkney to Madison, 
Aug. 13, 1810. WheatoD's Life of Pinkney, p. 446. 



232 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

tion on reassembling, November 27, 1809. After prolonged 
discussion in the lower house, ^ a joint resolution was 
passed approving the action of the Executive, and pledg- 
ing to him the support of the nation. Despite a lucid 
exposition by Josiah Quincy, that the offence particularly 
attributed to the British minister was disproved by a 
reasonable attention to the construction of his sentences, 
the majority persisted in sustaining the party chief. That 
disposed of, the question of commercial restriction was 
again taken up. 

It was conceded on all sides that Non-Intercourse had 
failed, and precisely in the manner predicted. On the 
south, Amelia Island, — at the mouth of the St. Mary's 
River, just outside the Florida boundary, — and on the 
north Halifax, and Canada in general, had become ports 
of deposit for American products, whence they were con- 
veyed in British ships to Great Britain and her depend- 
encies, to which the Act forbade American vessels to go. 
The effect was to give the carrying of American products 
to British shipi^ing, in precise conformity with the astute 
provisions of the Navigation Acts. British markets were 
reached by a broken voyage, the long leg of which, from 
Amelia and Halifax to Europe and elsewhere, was taken 
by British navigation. It was stated that there were at a 
given moment one hundred British vessels at Amelia, ^ the 
shores of which were encumbered with American goods 
awaiting such transportation. The freight from the Amer- 
ican ports to Amelia averaged a cent a pound, from Amelia 
to England eight cents ; ^ the latter amount going to Brit- 
ish pockets, the former to Americans who were debarred 
from full transatlantic freight by the prohibitions of the 
Non-Intercourse Act. The absence of competition neces- 
sarily raised the prices obtainable by the British shipper, 

1 Annals of Congress, 1809-10. 

2 Ibid., January 8, 1810, pp. 1164, 1234. ^ i^jj^ p. 1234. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 233 

and this, together with the additional cost of transship- 
njent and dehays, attendant upon a broken voyage, fell 
upon the American agriculturist, whose goods commanded 
just so much less at their place of origin. The measure 
was even ingeniously malaprop, considered from the point 
of view of its purpose towards Great Britain, whether re- 
taliatory or coercive. Upon France its effect was trivial, 
in any aspect. There was no French navigation, and the 
Orders in Council left little chance for American vessels 
to reach French ports. 

All agreed that the Non-Intercourse Act must go; the 
difficulty was to find a substitute which should not con- 
fessedly abandon the whole system of commercial restric- 
tions, idealized by the party in power, but from which it 
was being driven foot by foot. A first measure proposed 
was to institute a Navigation Act, borrowed in broad out- 
line from that of Great Britain, but in operation applied 
only to that nation and France, in retaliation for their in- 
jurious edicts. 1 Open intercourse with the whole world 
should be restored ; but British and French merchant ships, 
as well as vessels of war, should be excluded from Amer- 
ican harbors. British and French products could be im- 
ported only in vessels owned wholly by American citizens ; 
and after April 15, 1810, could be introduced only by 
direct voyage from the place of origin. This was designed 
to prevent the continuance of trade by way of Amelia or 
Halifax. It was pointed out in debate, however, that 
French shipping practically did not exist, and that in the 
days of open trade, before the embargo, only about eight 
thousand tons of British shipping yearly entered American 
ports, whereas from three hundred thousand to four hun- 
dred thousand American tons visited Great Britain. ^ 
Should she, by a strict retaliation, resent this clumsy 

1 AuDals of Congress, 1809-10, pp. 754, 755. 

2 Ibid., pp. 606, 607. 



234 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

attempt at injuring her, the weight of tlie blow would 
fall on Americans. American ships would be excluded 
from British ports; the carrying trade to Amelia and 
Halifax would be resumed, to the detriment of American 
vessels by a competition which otherwise would not 
exist, and British manufactures would be introduced by 
smuggling, to the grievous loss of the revenue, as had 
been notoriously and abundantly the case under the Non- 
Intercourse Act. In truth, a purely commercial war with 
Great Britain was as injurious as a military war, and more 
hopeless. 

The bill consequently failed in the Senate, though 
passed by the House. In its stead was adopted an 
Act which repealed that of Non-Intercourse, but pre- 
scribed that in case either Great Britain or France, 
before March 8, 1811, should so revoke or modify its 
edicts as that they should cease to violate the neutral 
commerce of the United States, the President should 
declare the fact by proclamation ; and if the other nation 
should not, within three months from the date of such 
proclamation, in like manner so modify or revoke its 
edicts, there should revive against it those sections of 
the Non-Intercourse Act which excluded its vessels from 
American ports, and forbade to American vessels importa- 
tion from its ports, or of its goods from any part of the 
world whatsoever. The determination of the fact of revo- 
cation by either state was left to the sole judgment of the 
President, by whose approval the Act became law May 1, 
1810.1 

As Great Britain and France, by the Orders in Council 
and the Berlin and Milan Decrees, were then engaged in 
a commercial warfare, in which the object of each was to 
exhaust its rival, the effect of this Act was to tender the 
co-operation of the United States to whichever of them 

1 Aimals uf Cougress, 1810, p. 2582. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 235 

should embrace the offer. In terms, it was strictly impar- 
tial between the two. In fact, forasmuch as France could 
not prevent American intercourse with Great Britain, 
whereas Great Britain, in fuitherance of her purposes, 
could and did prevent American trade with France, the 
latter had much more to gain; and particularly, if she 
should so word her revocation as to save her face, by not 
appearing- the first to recede, — to show weakening, — as 
Great Britain had been made for the moment to seem by 
Erskine's arrangement. Should this ingenious diplomacy 
prove satisfactory to the President, yet fail so to convince 
Great Britain as to draw from her the recall of the Orders 
in Council, the United States, by the simple operation of 
the law itself, would become a party to the Emperor's 
Continental system, in its specific aim of reducing his 
opponent's strength. 

At this very moment Napoleon was putting into effect 
against the United States one of those perverse and 
shameless interpretations of international relations, or 
actions, by which he not infrequently contrived to fill his 
pockets. The Non-Intercourse Act, passed March 3, 1809, 
had decreed forfeiture of any French or British ship, or 
goods, which should enter American waters after May 20, 
of the same year. The measure was duly communi- 
cated to the French Government, and no remonstrance 
had been made against a municipal regulation, which 
gave ample antecedent warning. There the matter rested 
until March 23, 1810, when the Emperor, on the ground 
of the Act, imposing these confiscations and forbidding 
American vessels to visit France, signed a retroactive 
decree that all vessels under the flag of the United States, 
which, since May 20, 1809, had entered ports of his 
empire, colonies, or of the countries occupied by liis 
arms, should be seized and sold. Commissioners were 
sent to Holland to enforce there this edict, known as the 



236 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Decree of Rambouillet, whicli was not actualh- piiblislied 
till May 14.^ It took effect upon vessels whicli, during a 
twelvemonth previous, unwarned, had gone to France, or 
the other countries indicated. Immediately before it was 
signed, the American minister, Armstrong, had written 
to Champagny, Duke of Cadore, the French Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, " Your Excellency knows that there are 
not less than one hundred American ships within his 
Majesty's possession, or that of his allies; '" and he 
added that, from several sources of information, he felt 
warranted in believing that not a single French vessel 
had violated the Non-Intercourse law, and therefore none 
could have beep seized. ^ 

The law of May 1 was duly communicated to the two 
states concerned, by the United States ministers there 
resident. Great Britain was informed that not only the 
Orders in Council, but the blockade of May, 1806,^ were 
included among the edicts affecting American commerce, 
the repeal of which was expected, as injurious to that 
commerce. France was told that this demand would be 
made upon her rival ;^ but that it was also the purpose 
of the President not to give the law effect favorable to 
herself, by publishing a proclamation, if the late seizures 
of the property of citizens of the United States had been 
followed by absolute confiscation, and restoration were 
finally refused. ^ This referred not to the Rambouillet 
Decree, as yet unknown in America, but to the previous 
seizures upon various pretexts, mentioned above by Arm- 
strong. Ultimately this purpose was not adhered to; 
but the Emperor was attentive to the President's inti- 

1 For Armstrong's letter and the text of the Decree, see American State 
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 384. 

- Armstrong to Champagny, March 10, 1810. American State Papers, 
Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 382. 

'^ American State Papers, Foreign Rel.ations, vol. iii. p. 362. 

4 Ibid., p. 385. '^ Ibid. 



FBOM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 237 

mation that " by putting in force, agreeably to the terms 
of this statute, the non-intercourse against Great Britain, 
the very species of resistance would be made which France 
has constantly been representing as most efficacious." i 
Thus, the co-operation of America to the Continental 
System was no longer asked, but offered. 

The Emperor did not wait even for information by the 
usual official channels. By some unexplained delay, Arm- 
strong's first knowledge was through a copy of the Gazette 
of the United States containing the Act, which he at once 
transmitted to Champagny, who replied August 5, 1810. ^ 
His Majesty wished that the acts of the United States 
Government could be more promptly communicated; not 
till very lately had he heard of the Non-Intercourse, — 
a statement which Armstrong promptly denied, referring 
Champagny to the archives of his own department. ""^ In 
view of the Act of May 1, the Emperor's decision was 
announced in a paragraph of the same letter, in the fol- 
lowing words: 

In this new state of things I am authorized to declare to you, 
Sir, that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that 
after the first of November they will cease to have effect ; it 
being understood that, in consequence of this dechiration, the 
English shall revoke their Orders in Council, and renounce the 
new principles of blockade, which they have wished to establish ; 
or that the United States, conformably to the Act which you 
have just communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected 
by the English. 

Definition is proverbially difficult; and over this super- 
ficially simple definition of circumstances and conditions, 
under which the Decrees of Berlin and Milan stood re- 
voked, arose a discussion concerning construction and 

^ The Secretary of State to Armstrong, June 5, 1810. American State 
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 385. 

^ American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 386. 
3 Ibid., p. 387. 



238 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

meaning which resembled the wrangling of scholars over 
a corrupt text in an obscure classical author, Clear- 
lieaded men became hopelessly involved, as they wrestled 
Avitli eacli others' interpretations; and the most got no 
farther than sticking to their fii-st opinions, probably 
reached in the majority of cases by sheer prepossession. 
The American ministers to France and Great Britain both 
accepted the words as a distinct, indisputable, revocation; 
and Madison followed suit. These hasty conclusions are 
not very surprising ; for there was personal triumph, dear 
to diplomatists as to other men, in seeing the repeal of 
the Decrees, or of the Orders, result from their efforts. 
It has been seen how much this factor entered into the feel- 
ings of Madison and Jefferson in the Erskine business, and 
to Armstrong the present turn was especially grateful, as 
he was about quitting his mission after several years buf- 
feting against Avind and tide. His sun seemed after all 
about to set in glory. He wrote to Pinkney, "I have the 
honor to inform you that his Majesty, the Emperor and 
King, has been pleased to revoke his Decrees of Berlin and 
Milan," 1 Pinkney, to whom the recall of the British 
Orders offered the like laurels, was equally emphatic in 
his communication to Wellesley; adding, "I take for 
granted that the revocation of the British Orders in 
Council of January and November, 1807, April, 1809, 
and all other orders dependent upon, or analogous, or in 
execution of them, will follow of course." ^ The British 
Government demurred to the interpretation ; but Madison 
accepted it, and on November 2 proclaimed it as a fact. 
In consequence, by the terms of the Act, non-intercourse 
would revive against Great Britain on P'ebruary 2, 1811. 

When Congress met, distrust on one side and assertion 
on the other gave rise to prolonged and acute discussion. 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 364. 

2 Ibid., p. 365. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 239 

Napoleon had surprised people so often, that no wonder 
need be felt at those who thought his words might bear a 
double meaning. The late President, who did not lack 
sagacity, had once written to his successor, "Bonaparte's 
policy is so crooked that it eludes conjecture. I fear his 
first object now is to dry up the sources of British pros- 
perity, by excluding her manufactures from the Continent. 
He may fear that opening the ports of Europe to our ves- 
sels will open them to an inundation of British wares." ^ 
This was exactly Bonaparte's dilemma, and suggested 
the point of view from which his every action ought to 
be scrutinized. Then there was the recent deception with 
Erskine, which, if it increased the doubts of some con- 
cerning the soundness of Madison's judgment, made it 
the more incumbent on others to show that on this oc- 
casion at least he had not been precipitate. Certainly, as 
regards the competency of the foreign official in either case, 
there was no comparison. A simple Minister Resident 
should produce particular powers or definite instructions, 
to guarantee his authority for concluding so important a 
modification of national policy as was accepted from 
Erskine; but by common usage the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, at a national capital, is understood to speak for 
the Chief Executive. The statement of Champagny, at 
Paris, that he was "authorized " to make a specific decla- 
ration, could be accepted as the voice of Napoleon himself. 
The only question was, what did the voice signify? 

In truth, explicit as Champagny's words sound. Napo- 
leon's memoranda, 2 on which they were based, show a 
deliberate purpose to avoid a formal revocation, for rea- 
sons analogous to those suggested by Jefferson. Through- 
out he used ^'' rapporter '' instead of '''' revoquer.'" In the 

1 Jefferson to Madison, April 27, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 442. 

2 Correspondance de Napole'on. Napoleon to Champagny, July 31, and. 
August 2, 1810, vol. XX. p. 644, and vol. xxi. p. 1. 



240 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

particular connection, the words are nearly sj-nonymous; 
yet to the latter attaches a natural fitness and emphasis, 
the avoidance of which betrays the bias, perhaps uncon- 
scious, towards seeking escape from self-committal on the 
matter in hand. His phrases are more definite. July 31 
he wrote, "After much reflection upon American affairs, 
1 have decided that to withdraw (^rapporter^ my decrees 
of Berlin and Milan would conduce to nothing {naurait 
aucun effet); that if is better you should address a note 
to Mr. Armstrong, in wdiich you will acquaint him that 
you have placed before me the details contained in the 
American gazette, . . . and since he assures us it may be 
regarded as oflicial, he may depend (^compter') that my 
decrees of Berlin and JVIilan will not receive execution 
(pi'auront aucun effet) dating from November 1 ; and 
that he should consider them as withdrawn (rapporth) 
in consequence of the Act of the American Congress; 
provided," etc. "This," he concludes, "seems to me 
more suitable than a decree, which would cause disturb- 
ance and would not fulfil my aim. This method seems 
to me more conformable to my dignity and to the serious 
character of the business." The Decrees, as touching the 
United States alone, were to be quietly withdrawn from 
action, but not formally revoked. They were to be dor- 
mant, yet potential. As convenience might dictate, it 
would be open to say that they were revoked [in effect], 
or not revoked [in form]. The one might, and did, 
satisfy the United States ; the other might not, and did 
not, content Great Britain, against whom exclusion from 
the continent remained in force. The two English- 
speaking peoples were set by the ears. August 2 the 
Emperor made a draft of the note to be sent to Arm- 
strong. This Champagny copied almost verbatim in the 
declaration quoted; substituting, however, ^'■revoquer'" iox 
'"'' rapporter.^^ 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 241 

It would be intolerable to attempt to drag readers 
through the mazes of analysis, and of comparison with 
other papers, by which the parties to the discussion, 
ignorant of the above memoranda, sought to establish 
their respective views. One thing, however, should 
have been patent to all, — that, with a man so subtle 
and adroit as Napoleon, any step in apparent reversal of 
a decided and cherished policy should have been complete 
and unequivocal, both in form and in terms. The Berlin 
Decree was put forth with the utmost formality with 
which majesty and power could invest it; the asserted 
revocation, if apparently explicit, was simply a paragraph 
in ordinary diplomatic correspondence, stating that revo- 
cation had taken place. If so, where was it? An act 
which undoes another, particularly if an injury, must 
correspond fully in form to that which it claims to undo. 
A private insult may receive private apology; but no 
private expression can atone for public insult or public 
wrong. In the appreciation of Mr. Madison, in 1807, 
so grave an outrage as that of the " Chesapeake " called for 
a special envoy, to give adequate dignity to the proffered 
rejjaration. Yet his followers now would have form to be 
indifferent to substantial effect. Champagny's letter, it 
is true, was published in the official paper; but, besides 
being in form merely a diplomatic letter, it bore the sig- 
nature of Champagny, whereas the decree bore that of 
Napoleon. The Decree of Rambouillet, then less than 
six months old, was clothed with the like sanction. 
Even Pinkney, usually so clear-headed, and in utterance 
incisive, suffered himself here to be misled. Does Eng- 
land find inadequate the "manner" of the French Revoca- 
tion? he asked. "It is precisely that in which the orders 
of its own Government, establishing, modifying, or remov- 
ing blockades, are usuall}' proclaimed." But the Decree 
of Berlin was no mere proclamation of a blockade. It had 

VOL. I. — 16 



242 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

been proclaimed, in the Emperor's own name, a funda- 
mental law of the Empire, until England had al)andoned 
certain lines of action. This was policy against policy, 
to which the blockade was incidental as a method. Eng- 
lish blockades were announced and withdrawn under 
identical forms of circular letter; but when an Order in 
Council, as that of November, 1807, was modified, as in 
April, 1809, it was done by an Order in Council, not by a 
diplomatic letter. In short, Champagny's utterance was 
the declaration of a fact; but where was the fact itself? 

Great Britain therefore refused to recognize the letter as 
a revocation, and could not be persuaded that it was by 
the opinion of the American authorities. Nor was the 
form alone inadequate; the terms were ambiguous, and 
lent themselves to a construction which would deprive 
her of all benefit from the alleged revocation. She had 
to look to her own battle, which reached its utmost in- 
tensity in this year 1810. Except the helpless Spanish 
and Portuguese insurgents, she had not an open friend 
in Europe; while Napoleon, freed from all opijonents by 
the overthrow of Austria in 1809, had organized against 
Great Britain and her feeble allies the most gigantic dis- 
play of force made in the peninsula since his own personal 
departure thence, nearly two years before. The United 
States had plain sailing; so far as the letter went, the 
Decrees were revoked, conditional on her executing the 
law of May 1. But Great Britain must renounce 
the " new " principles of blockade. What were these 
principles, pronounced new by the Decree? They were, 
that unfortified ports, commercial harbors, might be block- 
aded, as the United States a half century later strangled 
the Southern Confederacy. Such blockades were lawful 
then and long before. To yield this position would be 
to abandon rights upon which depended the political value 
of Great Britain's maritime supremacy; yet unless she 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 243 

did so the Berlin Decree remained in force against her. 
Tlie Decree was universal in application, not limited to 
the United States commerce, towards which Champagny's 
letter undertook to relax it; and British commerce would 
remain excluded from neutral continental ports ujiless 
Great Britain not only withdrew the Orders in Council, 
but relinquished prescriptive rights upon which, in war, 
depended her position in the world. 

In declining to repeal, Great Britain referred to her 
past record in proof of consistency. In the first com- 
munication of the Orders in Council, February 23, 1808,^ 
Erskine had written, " I am commanded by his Majesty 
especially to represent to the Government of the United 
States the earnest desire of his Majesty to see the com- 
merce of the world restored once more to that freedom 
which is necessary for its prosperity, and his readiness 
to abandon the system which has been forced upon him, 
wheyiever the enemij shall retract the principles which have 
rendered it necessary." The British envo}' in these sen- 
tences reproduced verbatim the instructions he had 
received, 2 and the words italicized bar expressly the sub- 
sequent contention of the United States, that revocation 
by one party as to one nation, irrespective of the rest of the 
world, and that in practice only, not in principle, entitled 
the nation so favored to revocation by the other party. 
They exclude therefore, by all the formality of written 
words at a momentous instant, tlie singular assertion of the 
American Government, in 1811, that Great Britain had 
pledged herself to proceed ^^ pari passu " ^ with France in the 
revocation of their respective acts. As far as can be ascer- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 209. Author'.s 
italics. 

2 Canning to Erskine, Dec. 1, 1807, transmitting the Orders in Council of 
November 11. British Foreign Office MSS. 

3 Monroe to Foster, Oct. 1, 1811. American State Papers. Foreign Rela- 
tions, vol. iii. p. 445. See also, more particularly, ibid., pp. 440, 441. 



244 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

tained, the origin of this confident assumption is to be 
found in letters of February 18 and 19, 1808/ from Madi- 
son, then Secretary of State, to Armstrong and Pinkney. 
In these he says that Erskine, in communicating the 
Orders, 2 expressed his Majesty's regrets, and "assurances 
that his Majesty would readil}- follow the example, in case 
the Berlin Decree should be rescinded, or would proceed 
pari passu with France in relaxing the rigor of their meas- 
ures." By whichever of the colloquists the expression was 
used, the contrast between this report of an interview 
and the official letter quoted sufficiently shows the snare 
latent in conversations, and the superior necessity of rely- 
ing upon written communications, to which informal talk 
only smooths the wa3% On the very day of Madison's 
writing to Armstrong, February 18, the Advocate Gen- 
eral, who may be presumed to have understood the 
purposes of the Government, was repudiating such a con- 
struction in the House of Commons. " Even let it be 
granted that there had been a public assurance to America 
that she alone was to be excepted from the influence of the 
Berlin Decree, would that have been a sufficient ground 
for us not to look further to our own interest? What! 
Because France chooses to exempt America from her in- 
jurious decrees, are we to consent to their continuance ? " ^ 

1 U. S. State Department MSS., and State Papers, vol. iii. p. 250. 

- That is, verbally, before his formal letter of February 2.3. 

3 Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. x. p. 669. A search through the 
correspondence of Canning and Erskine, as well as through the debates of 
Parliament upon the Orders in Council, January-April, 1808, reveals nothing 
confirmatory of the pari jxissii claim, put forth in Madison's letters quoted, and 
afterwards used by Monroe in his arguments with Foster. But in Canning's 
instructions to .lackson, July 1, 1809 (No. 3), aj)pears a sentence which may 
throw some light on the apparent misuTiderstanding. "As to the willingness 
or ability of neutral nations to resist the Decrees of France, his Majesty has 
always professed . . . a dis}ioxition to relax or modify his measures of retaliation 
and self-defence in proportion as those of neutral nations should come in aid of 
them and take their place." This would be action pari passii with a neutral ; 
and if the same were expressed to Erskine, it is far from incredible, in view 
of his remarkable action of 1809, that he may have extended it verbally with- 
out authority to cover an act of France. My italics. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 245 

Where such a contradiction exists, to assert a pledge from 
a Government, and that two years after Erskine's singu- 
lar performance of 1800, which led to his recall, is a curi- 
ous example of the capacity of the American Administra- 
tion, under Madison's guidance, for putting words into an 
opponent's mouth. In the present juncture, Wellesley re- 
plied 1 to Pinkney's claim for the revocation of the Orders 
in Council by quoting, and repeating, the assurance of 
Erskine's letter of February 23, 1808, given above. 

Yet, unless the Orders in Council were repealed. Napo- 
leon's concessions would not go far to relieve the United 
States. The vessels he would admit would be but the 
gleanings, after British cruisers had reaped the ocean field. 
Pinkney, tlierefore, had to be importunate in presenting 
the demands of his Government. Wellesley persisted in 
his method of procrastination. At last, on December 4, 
he wrote briefly to say that after careful inquiry he could 
find no authentic intelligence of the repeal, nor of the 
restoration of the commerce of neutral nations to its jjre- 
vious conditions. He invited, however, a fresh statement 
from Pinkney, who then, in a letter dated December 10,^ 
argued the case at length, under the three heads of the 
manner, or form, the terms, and the practical effect of 
the alleged repeal. Having completed the argument, he 
took incidental occasion to present the views of the United 
States concerning the whole system of the Orders in 
Council; animadverting severely, and emphasizing with 
liberal italics. The Orders went far beyond any intelli- 
gible standard of retaliatmi ; but it soon appeared that 
neutrals might be permitted to traffic, if they would 
submit with a dependence triili/ colonial to carry on their 
trade through British ports, to pay such duties as the 

1 Wellesley to Pinkney, Aug. .31, 1810. American State Papers, Foreign 
Relations, vol. iii. p. 366. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Kelatioiis, vol. iii. p. 376. 



246 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

British Government might impose, and such charges as 
British agents might make. The modification of April 26, 
1809, was one of appearance only. True, neutrals Avere 
no longer compelled to enter British ports; their proliibi- 
tion from interdicted ports was nominally absolute ; but it 
was known that by coming to Great Britain they could 
obtain a license to enter them, so that the effect was the 
same; and by forged papers this license system was so 
extended "that the commerce of England could advan- 
tageously find its way to those ports." ^ 

Wellesley delayed reply till December 29. ^ He re- 
gretted the intrusion of these closing remarks, which 
might tend to interfere with a conciliatory spirit, but 
without further comment on them addressed himself to 
the main question. His Government did not find the 
"notification" of the repeal of the French Decrees such as 
would justify it in recalling the Orders in Council. The 
United States having demanded the formal revocation of 
the blockade of May, 1806, as well as of the Orders in 
Council, lie "must conclude, combining your requisition 
with that of the French Minister, that America demands 
the revocation of that order of blockade, as a practical 
instance of our renunciation of those principles of block- 
ade which are condemned by the French Government." 
This inference seems overstrained; but certainly much 
greater substantial concession was required of Great 
Britain than of France. Wellesley intimated that this 
concert of action was partial — not neutral — between 
the two belligerents. " I trust that the justice of the 
American Government will not consider that France, by 
tlie repeal of her obnoxious decrees, under such a condi- 
tion,^ has placed the question in that state which can 

1 The American flag was used in this way to cover British shipping. For 
instances see American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 342. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 408. 

3 Author's italics. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 247 

warrant America in enforcing the Non-Intercourse Act 
against Great Britain, and not against France." He re- 
minded Pinkney of the situation in which the commerce 
of neutral nations had been placed by many recent acts 
of the French Government; and said that its system of 
violence and injustice required some precautions of de- 
fence on the part of Great Britain. In conclusion, his 
Majesty stood ready to repeal, when the French Decrees 
should be repealed without conditions injurious to the 
maritime rights and honor of the United Kingdom. 

Unhappily for Pinkney's argument on the actuality of 
Napoleon's repeal, on the very day of his own writing, 
December 10, the American charge^ in Paris, Jonathan 
Russell, was sending Champagny a remonstrance ^ upon 
the seizure of an American vessel at Bordeaux, under 
the decrees of Berlin and Milan, on December 1, — a month 
after their asserted repeal. That the Director of Customs 
at a principal seaport should understand them to be in 
force, nearly four months after the publication of Cham- 
pagny 's letter in the " Moniteur, " would certainly seem to 
imply some defect in customary form ; ^ and the ensuing 
measures of the Government would indicate also something 
misleading in the terms. Russell told Champagny that, 
since November 1, the alleged day of repeal, this was 
the first case to which the Berlin and Milan Decrees could 
apply; and lo! to it they were applied. Yet, "to execute 
the Act of Congress against the English requires the pi'e- 
vious revocation of the decrees." It was, indeed, ingen- 
iously argued in Congress, by an able advocate of the 

1 Armstrong had sailed for the United States two months before. 

2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 391. 

^ Russell on November 17 wrote that he had reason to believe that the revo- 
cation of the Decrees had not been notified to the ministers charged with the 
execution of them. On December 4 he said that, as the ordinary practice in 
seizing a vessel was to hold her sequestered till the papers were examined in 
Paris, this might explain why the local Custom-House was not notified of the 
repeal. Russell to the Secretary of State, U. S. State Department MSS. 



248 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Administration, that all the law required was the revoca- 
tion in terms of the Decrees ; their suhsequent enforcement 
in act was immaterial. ^ Such a solution, however, would 
scarcely content the American people. The French Gov- 
ernment now took a step which clearly showed that the 
Decrees were still in force, technically, however honest its 
purpose to hold to the revocation, if the United States com- 
plied with the conditions. Instructions to the Council of 
Prizes, 2 from the proper minister, directed that the vessel, 
and any others falling under the same category of entry 
after November 1, should "remain suspended " until after 
February 2, the period at which the United States should 
have fulfilled its obligation. Then they should be re- 
stored. 

The general trend of argument, pro and con, with the 
subsequent events, probably shook the confidence of the 
Administration, and of its supporters in Congress, in 
the certainty of the revocation, which the President 
had authenticated by his proclamation. Were the fact 
unimpeachable, the law was clear; non-intercourse with 
Great Britain would go into effect February 2, with- 
out further action. But the doubts started were so 
plausible that it was certain any condemnation or en- 
forcement under the law would be carried up to the 
highest court, to test whether the fact of revocation, 
upon which the operativeness of the statute turned, was 
legally established. Even should the court decline to 
review the act of the Executive, and accept the proclama- 
tion as sufficient evidence for its own decision, such feeble 
indorsement would be mortifying. A supplementary Act 
was therefore framed, doing away with the original, and 
then reviving it, us a new measure, against Great Britain 

1 Langdon Cheves of South Carolina. Annals of Congress, 1810-11, 
pp. 895-887. 

2 American State I'apers, Foreign Kelatious, vol. iii. p. 393. 



I 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 249 

alone. In presenting this, the member charged with 
its introduction said : '' The Committee thonglit proper 
that in this case the legislature should step forward and 
decide ; that it was not consistent with the responsibility 
they owed the community to turn over to judicial tribu- 
nals the decision of the question, whether the Non-Inter- 
course was in force or not."^ The matter was thus taken 
from the purview of the courts, and decided by a party 
vote. After an exhausting discussion, this bill passed 
at 4 A.M., February 28, 1811. It was approved by the 
President, March 2. 

For the settlement of American litigation this course 
was adequate; not so for the vindication of international 
procedure. The United States at this time had abun- 
dant justification for war with both France and Great 
Britain, and it was within the righteous decision of her 
own policy whether she should declare against either or 
both; but it is a serious impeachment of a Government's 
capacity and manfulness when, with such questions as 
Impressment, the Orders in Council, Napoleon's Decrees, 
and his arbitrary sequestrations, war comes not from a 
bold grappling with difficulties, but from a series of 
huckstering attempts to buy off one antagonist or the 
other, with the result of being fairly overreached. The 
outcome, summarily stated, had been that a finesse of 
the French Government had attached the United States 
to Napoleon's Continental System. She was henceforth, 
in effect, allied with the leading feature of French policy 
hostile to Great Britain. It was perfectly competent and 
proper for her so to attach herself, if she saw fit. The 
Orders in Council were a national wrong to her, justifying 
retaliation and war; still more so was Impressment. But 
it is humiliating to see one's country finally committed to 
such a step through being outwitted in a paltr}^ bargain, 
1 Annals of Congress, 1810-11, p. 990. 



250 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

and the justification of her course rested, not upon a firm 
assertion of right, but upon the refusal of another nation 
to accept a manifestly unequal proposition. The course 
of Great Britain was high-handed, unjust, and not always 
straightforward; but it was candor itself alongside of 
Napoleon's. 

There remained but one step to complete the formal 
breach; and that, if the writer's analysis has been cor- 
rect, resulted as directly as did the final Non-Intercourse 
Act from action erroneously taken by Mr. Madison's 
Administration. Jackson's place, vacated in November, 
1809, by the refusal to communicate further with him, 
remained still unfilled. This delay was thought deliber- 
ate by the United States Government, which on May 22 
wrote to Pinkney that it seemed to manifest indifference 
to the character of the diplomatic intercourse between 
the two countries, arising from dissatisfaction at the step 
necessarily taken with regard to Mr. Jackson. Should 
this inference from Wellesley's inaction prove correct, 
Pinkney was directed to return to the United States, 
leaving the office with a charge d'affaires^ for whom a 
blank appointment was sent. He was, however, to exer- 
cise his own judgment as to the time and manner. In con- 
sequence of his interview with Wellesley, and in reply to a 
formal note of inquiry, he received a private letter, July 
22, 1810, saying it was difficult to enter upon the subject 
in an official form, but that it was the Secretary's inten- 
tion immediately to recommend a successor to Jackson. 
Still the matter dragged, and at the end of the year no 
a})pointment had been made. 

In other ways, too, there was unexplained delay. In 
April Pinkney had received powers to resume the frus- 
trated nesrotiations committed first to him and Monroe. 
Wellesley had welcomed the advance, and had accepted 
an order of discussion which gave priority to satisfac- 



I 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 251 

tion for the ""Chesapeake" affair. After that an ar- 
rangement for the revocation of the Orders in Council 
should be attempted. On June 13 Pinkney wrote home 
that a verbal agreement conformable to his instructions 
had been reached concerning the ""Chesapeake," and that 
he was daily expecting a written overture embodying the 
terms. August 14 this had not been received, — to his 
great surprise, for Wellesley's manner had shown every 
disposition to accommodate. Upon this situation super- 
vened Cadore's declaration of the revocation of the French 
Decrees, Pinkney 's acceptance of the fact as indisputable, 
and his urgency to obtain from the British Government 
a corresponding measure in the repeal of the Orders. 
Through all ran the same procrastination, issuing in entire 
inaction. 

Pinkney's correspondence shows a man diplomatically 
self-controlled and patient, though keenly sensible to the 
indignity of unwarrantable delays. The rough speaking 
of his mind concerning the Orders in Council, in his letter 
of December 10, suggests no loss of temper, but a deliber- 
ate letting himself go. There appeared to him now no 
necessity for further endurance. To Wellesley's rejoinder 
of December 29 he sent an answer on January 14, 1811, 
"written," he said, "under the pressure of indisposition, 
and the influence of more indignation than could well be 
suppressed."^ The questions at issue were again trench- 
antly discussed, but therewith he brought to an end his 
functions as minister of the United States. Under the 
same date, but by separate letter, he wrote that as no 
steps had been taken to replace Jackson by an envoy of 
equal rank, his instructions imposed on him the duty of 
informing his lordship that the Government of the United 
States could not continue to be represented in England 

1 Pinkney to the Secretary of State, Jan. 17, 1811. American State 
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 408. 



252 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

hy a minister plenipotentiary. Owing to tlie insanity of 
the King, and the delays incident to the institution of a 
regency, liis audience of leave was delayed to February 
28; and it is a noticeable coincidence that the day of this 
formal diplomatic act was also that upon which the Non- 
Intercourse Bill against Great Britain passed the House 
of Representatives, In the course of the spring Pinkney 
embarked in the frigate " Essex " for the United States. 
He had no successor until after the War of 1812, and 
the Non-Intercourse Act remained in vigor to the day of 
hostilities. 

On February 15, a month after Pinkney's notification 
of his intended departure, Wellesley wrote him that the 
Prince Regent, whose authority as such dated only frf)m 
February 5, had appointed Mr. Augustus J. Foster min- 
ister at Washington. The delay had been caused in the 
first instance, "as I stated to you repeatedly," by the wish 
to make an appointment satisfactory to the United States, 
and afterwards by the state of his Majesty's Government; 
the regal function having been in abeyance until the 
King's incapacity was remedied by the institution of the 
Regent. Wellesley suggested the possibility of Pinkney 
reconsidering his decision, the ground for which was thus 
removed; but the minister demurred. He replied that he 
inferred, from Wellesley's letter, that the British Gov- 
ernment by this appointment signified its intention of 
conceding the demands of the United States; that the 
Orders in Council and blockade of May, 1806, would be 
annulled; without this a beneficial effect was not to be 
expected. Wellesley replied that no change of system 
was intended unless France revoked her Decrees. The 
effect of this correspondence, therefore, was simply to 
place Pinkney's departure upon the same ground as the 
new Non-Intercourse Act against Great Britain. 

Mr. Augustus John Foster was still a very young man. 



FROM THE ORDERS IiX COUNCIL TO WAR 253 

just thirty-one. He Imd but recently returned from the 
position of minister to Sweden, the duties of which he 
had discharged ^ during a year very critical for the for- 
tunes of that country, and in the event for Napoleon and 
Europe. Upon his new mission Wellesley gave him a 
long letter of instructions, ^ in which he dealt elaborately 
with the whole course of events connected with the Orders 
in Council and Bonaparte's Decree, especially as connected 
with America. In this occurs a concise and lucid sum- 
mary of the British policy, which is worth quoting. 
*' From this view of the origin of the Orders in Council, 
jou will perceive that the object of our system was not 
to crush the trade of the continent, but to counteract an 
attempt to crush British trade ; that we have endeavored 
to permit the continent to receive as large a portion of 
commerce as might be practicable through Great Britain, 
and that all our subsequent regulations, and every modi- 
fication of the system, by new orders, or modes of granting 
or withholding licenses, have been calculated for the pur- 
pose of encouraging the trade of neutrals through Great 
Britain,^ whenever such encouragement might appear 
advantageous to the general interests of commerce and 
consistent with the public safety of the nation, — the pres- 
ervation of which is the primary object of all national 
councils, and the paramount duty of the Executive 
power." 

In brief, the plea was that Bonaparte by armed con- 
straint had forced the continent into a league to destroy 
Great Britain through her trade ; that there was cause to 
fear these measures would succeed, if not counteracted; 

1 Foster had succeeded a.s charfjS d'affaires in May, 1809, by the departure 
of Merry, formerly minister to the United States. He was afterwards ap- 
pointed minister; but in June, 1810, under pressure from Bonaparte, Sweden 
requested him to leave the country. 

■■^ Pearce, Life and Correspondeuce of the Marquis Wellesley, vol. iii. p. 193. 

3 Author's italics. 



254 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

that retaliation by similar measures was therefore de- 
manded by the safety of the state ; and that the method 
adopted was retaliation, so modified as to produce the 
least possible evil to others concerned. It was admitted 
and deplored that prohibition of direct trade with the 
ports of the league injuriously affected the United States. 
That tliis was illegal, judged by the law of nations, 
was also admitted; but it was justified by the nat- 
ural right of retaliation. Wellesley scouted the view, 
pertinaciously urged by the American Government, that 
the exclusion of British commerce from neutral continen- 
tal ports by the Continental System was a mere munici- 
pal regulation, which the United States could not resist. 
Municipal regulation was merely the cloak, beneatli which 
France concealed her military coercion of states helpless 
against her policy. "The pretext of municipal right, 
under which the violence of the enemy is now exercised 
against neutral commerce in every part of the continent, 
will not be admitted by Great Britain; nor can we ever 
deem the repeal of the French Decrees to be effectual, 
until neutral commerce shall be restored to the conditions 
in which it stood, previously to the commencement of the 
French system of commercial warfare, as promulgated in 
the Decrees." 

Foster's mission was to urge these arguments, and to 
induce the repeal of the Non-Intercourse law against 
Great Britain, as partial between the two belligerents; 
who, if offenders against accepted law, were in that 
offenders equally. The United States was urged not 
thus to join Napoleon's league against Great Britain, 
from which indeed, if so supported, the direst distress 
must arise. It is needless to pursue the correspondence 
which ensued with Monroe, now Secretary of State. By 
Madison's proclamation, and the passage of the Non- 
Intercourse Act of March 2, 1811, the American Gov- 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 255 

ernment was irretrievably committed to the contention that 
France had so revoked her Decrees as to constitute an 
obligation upon Great Britain and upon the United States. 
To admit mistake, even to one's self, in so important a 
step, probably passes diplomatic candor, and especially 
after the blunder in Erskine's case. Yet, even admitting 
the adequacy of Champagny's letter, the Decrees were 
not revoked ; seizures were still made under them. In 
November, 1811, Monroe had to write to Barlow, now 
American minister to France, " It is not sufficient that it 
should appear that the French Decrees are repealed, in the 
final decision of a cause brought before a Fi^ench tribunal. 
An active prohibitory policy should be adopted to prevent 
seizures on the principle."^ This was in the midst of 
his correspondence with Foster. The two disputants 
threshed over and over again the particulars of the con- 
troversy, but nothing new was adduced by either.^ Con- 
ditions were hopeless, and war assured, even when Foster 
arrived in Washington, in June, 1811. 

One thing, however, was finally settled. In behalf 
of his Government, in reparation for the " Chesapeake " 
affair, Foster repeated the previous disavowal of Berke- 
ley's action, and his consequent recall; and offered to 
restore to the ship herself the survivors of the men taken 
from her. Pecuniary provision for those who had suf- 
fered in the action, or for their families, was also 
tendered. The propositions were accepted, while de- 
nying the adequacy of Berkeley's removal from one 
command to another. The men were brought to Boston 
harbor, and there formally given up to the "Chesapeake." 

Tardy and insufficient as was this atonement, it was 
further delayed, at the very moment of tendering, by an 
incident which may be said to have derived directly from 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 514- Author's 
italics. 2 Ibid., p. 435. 



256 . ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the original injury. In June, 1810, a squadron of frig- 
ates and sloops had been constituted under Commodore 
John liodgers, to patrol the coast from the Capes of the 
Chesapeake northward to the eastern limit of the United 
States. Its orders, generally, were to defend from mo- 
lestation by a foreign armed ship all vessels of the United 
States within the marine league, seaward, to which neutral 
jurisdiction was conceded by international law. Force was 
to be used, if necessary, and, if the offender were a pri- 
vateer, or piratical, she was to be sent in. So weak and 
unready was the nominal naval force of the United States, 
that piracy near her very shores was apprehended ; and 
concern was expressed in Congress regarding vessels from 
Santo Domingo, thus converted into a kind of local Bar- 
bary power. To these general instructions the Secretary 
of the Navy attached a special reminder. Recalling the 
" Chesapeake " affair, as a merely exaggerated instance of 
the contumely everywhere heaped upon the American flag 
by both belligerents, he wrote: "What has been perpe- 
trated may be again attempted. It is therefore our duty 
to be prepared and determined at every hazard to vindicate 
the injured honor of our navy, and revive the drooping 
spirit of the nation. It is expected that, while you con- 
duct the force under your command consistently with the 
principles of a strict and upright neutrality, you are to 
maintain and support at every risk and cost the dignity 
of our flag; and that, offering yourself no unjust aggres- 
sion, you are to submit to none, not even a menace or 
threat from a force not materially your superior." 

Under such reminiscences and such words, the ships' 
guns were like to go off of themselves. It requires small 
imagination to picture the feelings of naval officers in the 
years after the "Chesapeake's" dishonor. In transmit- 
ting the orders to his captains, Rodgers added, "Every 
man, woman, and child, in our country, will be active in 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 257 

consigning our names to disgrace, and even the very vessels 
composing our little navy to the ravages of the worms, or 
the detestable transmigration to merchantmen, should we 
not fulfil their expectations. I should consider the firing 
of a shot by a vessel of war, of either nation, and par- 
ticularly England, at one of our public vessels, whilst the 
colors of iier nation are flying on board of her, as a menace 
of the grossest order, and in amount an insult which it 
would be disgraceful not to resent by the return of two 
shot at least; while should the shot strike, it ought to be 
considered an act of hostility meriting chastisement to the 
utmost extent of all your force." ^ The Secretary indorsed 
approval upon the copy of this order forwarded to him. 
Rodgers' apprehension for the fate of the navy reflected 
accurately the hostile views of leaders in the dominant 
political party. Demoralized by the gunboat system, and 
disorganized and browbeaten by the loud-mouthed disfavor 
of representative Congressmen, the extinction of the ser- 
vice was not unnaturally expected. Bainbridge, a captain 
of standing and merit, applied at this time for a furlough 
to make a commercial voyage to China, owing to straitened 
means. " I have hitherto refused such offers, on the pre- 
sumption that my country would require my services. 
That presumption is removed, and even doubts entertained 
of the permanency of our naval establishment." ^ 

The following year, 1811, Rodgers' squadron and orders 
were continued. The British admirals of adjacent stations, 
acting doubtless under orders from liome, enjoined great 
caution upon their ships of war in approaching the Ameri- 
can coast. ^ Wliile set not to relax tlie Orders in Coun- 
cil, the ministry did not wish war by gratuitous offence. 

1 Rodgers to Secretary of the Navy, Aug. 4, 1810. Captains' Letters. 

- Eaiiibridge to the Secretary of the Navy, May 3, 1810. Captaius' Letters. 
The caf*e was not singular. 

^ Orders of Admiral Sawyer to the Captain of the "Little Belt." Amer- 
ican State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 475. 
VOL. I. — 17 



258 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Cruising, however, continued, though charged with possi- 
bilities of explosion. Under these circumstances Rodgers' 
ship, the " President " frigate, and a British sloop of war, 
the "Little Belt," sighted each other on jVIay 16, 1811, 
fifty miles east of Cape Henry. Independent of the gen- 
eral disposition of ships of war in troublous times to 
overhaul and ascertain the business of any doubtful sail, 
Rodgers' orders prescribed the capture of vessels of cer- 
tain character, even outside the three-mile limit; and, 
the " Little Belt " making sail from him, he pursued. 
About 8 P. M., it being then full dark, the character and 
force of the chase were still uncertain, and the vessels 
within range. The two accounts of what followed differ 
diametrically; but the British official version ^ is less ex- 
haustive in matter and manner than the American, which 
rests upon the sworn testimou}- of numerous competent 
witnesses before a formal Court of Inquiry.^ By this it 
was found proved that the "Little Belt" fired the first 
gun, which by Rodgers' statement cut away a backstay 
and went into the mainmast. The batteries of both ships 
opened, and an engagement followed, lasting twelve or 
fifteen minutes, during w^hich the "Little Belt," hopelessly 
inferior in force, was badly cut up, losing nine killed and 
twenty-three wounded. Deplorable as was this result, 
and whatever unreconciled doubts may be entertained by 
others than Americans as to the blame, there can be no 
question that the affair was an accident, unpremeditated. 

* American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 473. In tlie absence of the British 
admiral, the senior officer at Halifax assembled a board of captains which col- 
lected what Ilia letter styles the depositions of the " Little Belt's " officers. 
Depositions would imply that tlie witnesses were sworn, but it is not so said in 
the report of the Board, where they simply "state." In the case of honorable 
gentlemen history may give equal credit in either case; but the indication 
would be that inquiry was less particular. The Board reports no question by 
itself; the "statements" are in tlie first person, apparently in reply to the 
request "tell all you know," and are uninterrupted by comment. 

■■^ The proceedings of this court are printed in American State Papers, 
Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 477-497. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 259 

It was clearly in evidence that Rodgers had cautioned 
his oificers against any firing prior to orders. There was 
nothing of the deliberate purpose characterizing the " Chesa- 
peake " affair ; yet Mr. Foster, with the chariness which from 
first to last marked the British handling of that business, 
withheld the reparation authorized by his instructions until 
he had received a cop}^ of the proceedings of the court. 

On July 24, 1811, the President summoned Congress to 
meet November 4, a month before the usual time, in con- 
sequence of the state of foreign affairs. His message 
spoke of ominous indications; of the inflexible hostility 
evidenced by Great Britain in trampling upon rights 
which no independent nation can relinquish; and recom- 
mended legislation for increasing the military force. As 
regarded the navy, his words were indefinite and vague, 
beyond suggesting the expediency of purchasing materials 
for ship-building. The debates and action of Congress 
reflected the tone of the Executive. War was antici- 
pated as a matter of course, and mentioned freely in 
speeches. That the regular army should be enlarged, 
and dispositions made for more effective use of the militia, 
was granted; the only dispute being about the amount 
of development. In this the legislature exceeded the 
President's wishes, which were understood, though not 
expressed in the message. Previous Congresses had 
authorized an army of ten thousand, of which not more 
than five thousand were then in the ranks. It was voted 
to complete this ; to add twenty-five thousand more regu- 
lars, and to provide for fifty thousand volunteers. Doubts, 
based upon past experience, and which proved well founded, 
were expressed as to the possibility of raising so many reg- 
ular troops, pledged for five years to submit to the restric- 
tions of military life. It was urged that, in the economical 
conditions of the country, the class did not exist from 
which such a force could be recruited. 



260 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

This consideration did not apply to the navy. Seamen 
could be had abundantly from the merchant shi[)ping, the 
activities of which must necessarily be much curtailed by 
war with a great naval power. Nevertheless, the domi- 
nance of Jefferson, though in this particular already 
shaken, remained upon the mass of his party. The new 
Secretary of the Navy was from South Carolina, not 
reckoned among the commercial states; but, however in- 
fluenced, he ventured to intimate doubts as to the gun- 
boat system. Of one thing there was no doubt. On a 
gunboat a gun cost twelve thousand dollars a year; the 
same on a frigate cost but four thousand.^ In the House 
of Representatives, the strongest support to the devel- 
opment of the navy as a permanent force came from the 
Secretary's state, backed by Henry Clay from Kentucky, 
and by the commercial states ; the leading representative 
of which, Josiah Quinc}^, expressed, however, a certain 
diffidence, because in the embittered politics of the day 
the mere fact of Federalist support tended rather to dam- 
age the cause. 

So much of the President's message as related to the 
navy — three lines, wholly non-committal — was referred 
to a special committee. The report ^ was made by Langdon 
Cheves of South Carolina, whose clear and cogent exposi- 
tion of the capabilities of the country and the possibility 
of providing a force efficient against Great Britain, under 
her existing embarrassments, was supported powerfully 
and perspicuously by William Lowndes of the same state. 
The text for their remarks was supplied by a sentence in 
the committee's report: "The important engine of na- 
tional strength and national security, which is formed by 
a naval force, has hitherto been treated with a neglect 
highly impolitic, or supported by a spirit so languid, as, 

1 Annals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 890. 

2 Dec. 17, 1811. American State Papers, Naval Affairs, vol. i. p. 247. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 261 

while it has preserved the existence of the establishment, 
has had the effect of loading it with the imputations of 
wasteful expense, and comparative inefficiency. . . . Such 
a course is impolitic under any circumstances." This was 
the condemnation of the party's jDast. Clay found his 
delight in dealing with some of the oratory, which on the 
present occasion still sustained — and for the moment 
successfully sustained — the prepossessions of Jefferson. 
Carthage, Rome, Venice, Genoa, were republics with free 
institutions and great navies; Carthage, Rome, Venice, 
and Genoa had lost their liberties, and their national 
existence. Clearly navies, besides being very costlj^, 
were fatal to constitutional freedom. Not in reply to 
such non sequitur, but quickened by an insight which 
was to receive earlier vindication than he could have 
anticipated, Quincy prophesied that, amid the diverse 
and contrary interests of the several states, which the 
lack of a common object of affection left still imperfectly 
unified in sentiment, a glorious navy, identified with the 
whole country because of its external action, yet local to 
no part, would supply a common centre for the enthusiasm 
not yet inspired by the central government, too closely 
associated for years back with a particular school of ex- 
treme political thought, narrowly territorial and clannish 
in its origin and manifestation. Within a twelvemonth, 
the "Constitution," most hapj^ily apt of all names ever 
given to a ship, became the embodiment of this verified 
prediction. 

The report of the committee was modest in its scoiDe. 
"To the defence of your ports and harbors, and the pro- 
tection of your coasting trade, should be confined the 
present objects and operations of any navy which the 
United States can, or ought, to have." To this office 
it was estimated that twelve ships of the line and twenty 
friofates would suffice. Cheves and Lowndes were satisfied 



262 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

that such a fleet was within the resources of the country; 
and to insure the fifteen thousand seamen necessary to 
man it, they would be willing to limit the number of pri- 
vateers, — a most wholesome and necessary provision. By 
a careful historical examination of Great Britain's past 
and present exigencies, it was shown that such a force 
would most probably keep clear the approaches to all 
American ports, the most critical zone for shipping, 
whether inward or outward bound; because, to counter- 
act it, the enemy would have to employ numbers so 
largely superior that they could not be spared from her 
European conflict. The argument was sound; but un- 
haj)pily Cheves, Lowndes, Clay, and Quincy did not 
represent the spirit of the men who for ten years had 
ruled the country and evolved the gunboat system. 
These, in their day of power, not yet fully past, had 
neither maintained the fleet nor accumulated material, 
and there was no seasoned timber to build with. The 
Administration which expired in 1801 had left thnber 
for six 74-gun ships, of which now remained only enough 
for four. The rest had been wasted in gunboats, or other- 
wise. The committee therefore limited its recommenda- 
tions to building the frigates, for which it was believed 
materials could be procured. 

Even in this reduced form it proved impossible to over- 
come the opposition to a navy as economically expensive 
and politically dangerous. The question was amply de- 
bated ; but as, on the one hand, little doubt was felt about 
the rapid conquest of Canada by militia and volunteers, 
so, on the other, the same disposition to trust to extem- 
porized irregular forces encouraged reliance simply upon 
privateering. Private enterprise in such a cause un- 
doubtedly has from time to time attained marked results ; 
but in general effect the method is a wasteful expenditure 
of national resources, and, historicall}-, saps the strength 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 263 

of the regular navy. In the manning of inefficient pri- 
vateers — and the majority were inelBcient and ineffective 
— were thrown away resources of seamen which, in an 
adequate naval force, organized and directed as it would 
have been by the admirable officers of that period, could 
have accomplished vastly more in the annoyance of British 
trade, — the one offensive naval undertaking left open 
to the nation. Even with the assistance of the Federa- 
lists the provision for the frigates could not be carried, 
though the majority was narrow — 62 to 59. The same 
fate befell the proposition to provide a dockyard. All that 
could be had was an appropriation of six hundred thou- 
sand dollars, distributed over three successive years, for 
buying timber. These votes were taken January 27, 1812, 
in full expectation of war, and only five months before it 
was declared. 

Early in April, Congress, in secret session, passed an 
Act of Embargo for ninety days, which became law on 
the fourth by the President's signature. The motive 
was twofold : to retain at home the ships and seamen of 
the nation, in anticipation of war, to keep them from 
falling into the hands of the enemy; and also to prevent 
the carriage of supplies indispensably necessary to the 
British armies in Spain. Both objects were defeated by 
the action of Quincy, in conjunction with Senator Lloyd 
of Massachusetts and Representative Emott of New York. 
Learning that the President intended to recommend the 
embargo, these gentlemen, as stated by Quincy on the 
floor of the House, despatched at once to Philadelphia, 
New York, and Boston, expresses which left Washington 
March 31, the day before Madison's letter was dated. 
Four or five days' respite was thus secured, and the whole 
mercantile community set zealously to work to counteract 
the effects of the measure. "Niles' Register," published 
in Baltimore, said: "Drays were working night and day, 



264 AXTECEDEXTS OF THE WAR 

from Tuesday night. March 31, and continued their toil 
till Sunday morning, incessantly. In this hurly-burly to 
palsy the arm of the Government all parties united. On 
Sunday perhaps not twenty seamen, able to do duty, could 
be found in all Baltimore." A Xew York paper is quoted 
as saying. " The propeity could not have been moved off 
with greater expedition had the city been enveloped in 
flames.*' From that port forty-eight vessels cleared: from 
Baltimore thirty-one ; Philadelphia and Alexandria in like 
proportions. It was estimated that not less than two 
hundred thousand barrels of flour, besides grain in other 
shapes, and provisions of all kinds, to a total value of 
fifteen million dollars, were rushed out of the country 
in those five days, when labor-saving appliances were 
nearly unknown.^ 

Jonathan Russell, who was now charge d'affaires at 
London, having been transferred from Paris upon the 
arrival of Armstrong's successor, Joel Barlow, wrote 
home, "The great shipments of provisions, which were 
hurried from America in expectation of the embargo, 
have given the Peninsula a supply for about two months ; 
and at the expiration of that period the harvest in that 
region wiU furnish a stock for alx)Ut three months more. 
. . . The aviditj- discovered by our countrymen to escape 
from the embargo, and the disregard of its polic\-, have 
encouraged this Government to hope that supplies will 
still continue to be received from the United States. The 
ship 'Lady Madison,' which left Liverpool in March, has 
returned thither with a cargo taken in off Sandy Hook 
without entering an American port. There are several 
vessels now about leaving this country with the inten- 
tion not only of procuring a cargo in the same way, but 
of getting rid, illicitly, of one they cany out."^ 

1 Niles' Register, vol. ii. pp. 101-104. 

2 Ruisell to Jlonroe, Mar 30, 1812. U. S. State Department MSS- 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 265 

It was, indeed, a conspic-uous instance of mercantile 
avidity, wholly disregardful of patriotic considerations, 
such as is to be found in all times and in all coun- 
tries; strictly analogous to the constant smuggling be- 
tween France and Great Britain at this very time. Its 
significance in the present case, however, is as marking 
the widespread lack of a national patriotism, as distinct 
from purely local advantage and personal interests, which 
unhappily characterized Americans at this period. Of 
this Great Britain stood ready to avail herself, by ex- 
tending to the United States the system of licenses, by 
which, combined with the Orders in Council, she was 
combating with a large degree of success Napoleon's 
Continental System. She hojied, and the sequel showed 
not unreasonably, that even during open hostilities she 
could in the same manner thwart the United States in its 
efforts to keep its own produce from her markets. Less 
than a fortnight after the American Declaration of War 
was received, Russell, who had not yet left England, wrote 
to the Secretary of State that the Board of Trade had given 
notice that licenses would be granted for American vessels 
to carry provisions from the United States to Cadiz and 
Lisbon, for the term of eight months; and that a policy 
had been issued at Lloyds to a Xew York firm, insuring 
flour from that port to the peninsula, warranted free from 
British capture, and from capture or detention by the 
Government of the United States.^ 

The British armies were thus nourished and depend- 
ent, both in Spain and in Canada. The supplying of 
the latter scarcely fell short of treason, and decisively 
affected the maintenance of the war in that quarter. It 
is difficult to demonstrate a moral distinction between 
what was done there, disregardful of national success, 
in shameful support of the enemy, and the supplying of 
1 Russell to Monroe, August 15 aud 21, 1S12. U. S. State Department ilSS. 



266 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

the peninsula; but an intuitive sympathy extends to the 
latter a tolerance Avhich the motives of the individual 
agents probably do not deserve, and for which calm 
reason cannot give a perfectly satisfactory account. But 
it was the misfortune of American policy, as shaped by 
the Administration, that it was committed to support 
Napoleon in his iniquitous attack upon the liberties of 
Spain; that it saw in his success the probable fulfilment 
of its designs upon the Floridas ; ^ and that its chosen 
ground for proceeding against Great Britain, rather than 
France, was her refusal to conform her action to a state- 
ment of the Emperor's, the illusory and deceptive char- 
acter of which became continually more apparent. 

To declare war because of the Orders in Council was a 
simple, straightforward, and wholly justifiable course ; but 
the flying months made more and more evident, to the 
Government and its agents abroad, that it was vain to 
expect revocation on the ground of Napoleon's recall of 
his edicts, for they were not recalled. Having entered 
upon this course, however, it seemed impossible to recede, 
or to acknowledge a mistake, the pinch of which was 
nevertheless felt. Writing to Russell, whose service in 
Paris, from October, 1810, to October, 1811, and transfer 
thence to London, made him unusually familiar, on both 
sides of the Channel, with the controversy over Cham- 
pagny's letter of August 5, 1810, Madison speaks "of the 
delicacy of our situation, having in view, on the one hand, 
the importance of obtaining from the French Government 
confirmation of the repeal of the Decrees, and on the other 
that of not weakening the ground on which the British 
repeal was urged." ^ That is, it would be awkward to have 
the British ministry find out that we were pressing France 
for a confirmation of that very revocation which we were 

1 See Jefferson's Works, vol. v. pp. 335. 337, 338, 339, 419, 442-445. 
■^ Madison to Russell, Nov. 15, 1811. U. S. State Department MSS. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 267 

confidently asserting to tliem to be indisputable, and to 
require in good faith the withdrawal of their Orders. 
Respecting action taken under the so-called repeal, Russell 
had written on March 15, 1811, over three months after 
it was said to take effect, " By forbearing to condemn, or 
to acquit, distinctly and loyally, [the vessels seized since 
November 1], this Government encourages us to persevere 
in our non-importation against England, and England to 
persist in her orders against us. This state of things 
appears calculated to produce mutual complaint and irri- 
tation, and cannot probably be long continued without 
leading to a more serious contest, . . . which is perhaps 
an essential object of this country's policy." ^ July 15, he 
expressed regret to the Duke of Bassano, the French Minis- 
ter of Foreign Affairs, that the proceedings concerning cap- 
tured American vessels "had been so partial, and confined 
to cases which from their peculiar circumstances proved 
nothing conclusively in relation to the revocation of the 
French Edicts." ^ 

Russell might have found some light as to the 
causes of these delays, could he have seen a note ad- 
dressed by the Emperor to the Administration of Com- 
merce, April 29. In this, renewing the reasoning of the 
Bayonne Decree, he argued that every American vessel 
which touched at an English port was liable to confisca- 
tion in the United States; consequently, could be seized 
by an American cruiser on the open sea; therefore, was 
equally open to seizure there by a French cruiser — the de- 
mand advanced by Canning ^ which gave such just offence; 
and if by a French cruiser at sea, likewise in a French port 
by the French Government. She was in fact no longer 
American, not even a denationalized American, but an 
English vessel. Under this supposition, Napoleon lumi- 

1 Kussell to Robert Smith, March 15, 181 1. U. S. State Department MSS. 
" Russell to the Secretary of State, July 15, 1811. Ibui. 
3 Ante, p. 217. 



268 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

nously inferred, "It could be said: The Decrees of Berlin 
and Milan are recalled as to the United States, but, as 
every ship which has stopped in England, or is destined 
thither, is a ship unacknowledged (sans aveii)^ whicli 
American laws punish and confiscate, she may be con- 
fiscated in France." The Emperor concluded that should 
this theory not be capable of substantiation, the matter 
might for the present be left obscure.^ On September 13 
the ships in question had not been liberated. 

Coincidently with his note to Bassano, Russell wrote 
to Monroe, " It is my conviction that the great object of 
their policy is to entangle us in a war with England. 
They therefore abstain from doing any act which would 
furnish clear and unequivocal testimony of the revocation 
of their decrees, lest it should induce the extinction of the 
British Orders, and thereby appease our irritation against 
their enemy. Hence, of all the captured vessels since 
November 1, the three which were liberated were precisely 
those which had not violated the Decrees." ^ Yet, such 
were the exigencies of the debate with England, those 
three cases were transmitted by him at the same time 
to the American charge in London as evidence of the 
revocation.^ To tlie French Minister he wrote again, 
August 8, " After the declarations of M. de Champagny 
and yourself, I cannot permit myself to doubt the revoca- 
tion; . . . but I may be allowed to lament that no fact 
has yet come to my knowledge of a character unequivo- 
cally and incontrovertibly to confirm that revocation." 
"That n(me of the captured vessels have been condemned, 
instead of proving the extinction of the edicts, appears 
rather to be evidence, at best, of a commutation of the 

1 Note dictee on coiiseil d'Administration du Commerce, April 29, 1811. 
Correspoiidant'e de Nai)oli''oii, vol. xxii. p. 144. 

- Russell to Monroe, July 1.3, 1811. U. S. State Department MSS. 

8 Ru.ssell to J. S. Smitli, July 14, 1811. American State Paper.s, Foreign 
Relation,'', vol. iii. p. 447. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 269 

penalty from prompt confiscation to perpetual detention." ^ 
The matter was further complicated by an announcement 
of Nai)oleon to the Chamber of Commerce, in April of the 
same year, that the Berlin and IMilan Decrees were the 
fundamental law of the Empire concerning neutral com- 
merce, and that American ships would be repelled from 
French ports, unless the United States conformed to 
those decrees, by excluding British ships and merchan- 
dise. ^ Under such conditions, argument with a sceptical 
British ministry was attended with difficulties. The posi- 
tion to which the Government had become reduced, by 
endeavoring to i)lay off France and Great Britain against 
each other, in order to avoid a war with either, was as 
perplexing as humiliating. "Great anxiety,"-'' to which 
little sympathy can be extended, was felt in Washington 
as to the evidence for the actuality of the repeals. 

The situation was finally cleared up by a clever move 
of the British Cabinet, forcing Napoleon's hand at a 
moment when the Orders in Council could with difficulty 
be maintained longer against popular discontent. On 
March 10, 1812, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
in a report to the Senate, reiterated the demands of the 
Decrees, and asserted again that, until those demands 
were conceded by England, the Decrees must be en- 
forced against Powers which permitted their flags to be 
denationalized. The position thus reaffirmed was empha- 
sized by a requirement for a large increase of the army for 
this object. "It is necessary that all the disposable forces 
of France be available for sending everywhere where the 
English flag, and other flags, denationalized or convoyed 
by English ships of war, may seek to enter. "'^ No excep- 

1 Russell to Bassano, Aug. 8, 1811. U. S. State Department MSS. 

2 Russell to Robert Smith, April, 1811. Ibid. 

3 Monroe to Rus.sell, June 8, 1811. Ibid. 

* Reports of the Miui.sters of Foreign Relations and of War, March 10, 
1812. Moniteur, March 16. 



270 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

tions in favor of the United States being stated, the British 
ministry construed the omission as conclusive proof of 
tlie unqualiiied continuance of the Decrees ; ^ and the oc- 
casion was taken to issue an Order in Council, defining 
the Government's position, both in the past and for the 
future. Quoting the French minister's Report, as re- 
moving all doubts of Napoleon's persistence in the main- 
tenance of a system, "as inconsistent with neutral rights 
and independence as it was hostile to the maritime rights 
and commercial interests of Great Britain," the Prince 
Regent declared that, " if at any time thereafter the Berlin 
and Milan Decrees should be absolutely and uncondition- 
ally repealed, by some authentic act of the French Gov- 
ernment, publicly i^romulgated, then the Orders in Council 
of January, 1807, and April, 1809, shall without any 
further order be, and the same are hereby declared from 
thenceforth to be, wholly and absolutely revoked." ^ No 
exception could be taken to the phrasing or form of this 
Order. The wording was precise and explicit; the time 
fixed Avas definite, — the date of the French Repeal ; the 
manner of revocation was the same as that of promul- 
gation, an Order in Council observant of all usual 
formalities. 

In substance, this well-timed State Paper challenged 
Champagny's letter of August 5, 1810, and the Ameri- 
can Non-Importation Act based upon it. Both these 
asserted the revocation of the French Decrees. The 
British Cabinet, seizing a happy opportunity, asked of 
the world the production of the revocation, or else the 
justification of its own course. The demand went far to 
silence the growing discontents at home, and to embarrass 
the American Government in the grounds upon which 

1 Kussell to Monroe, April 19, 1812. U. S. State Department INISS. 
- Tlie copy of this Order in Council which the author is here using is iu 
the Naval Chronicle, vol. xxvii. p. 466. 



FROM TEE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 271 

it had chosen to base its action. It was well calculated 
also to disconcert the Emperor, for, unless he did some- 
thing more definite, dissension would increase in the 
United States, where, as Barlow wrote, " It is well known 
to the world, for our public documents are full of it, that 
great doubts exist, even among our best informed mer- 
chants, and in the halls of Congress itself, whether the 
Berlin and IMilan Decrees are to this day repealed, or 
even modified, in regard to the United States." The 
sentence is taken from a letter ^ which he addressed to 
the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 1, 1812, 
when he had received the recent British Order. He 
pointed out how astutely this step was calculated to undo 
the effect of Champagny's letter, and to weaken the 
American Administration at the critical moment when 
it was known to be preimring for war. He urged that 
the French Government should now make and publish 
an authentic Act, declaring the Berlin and Milan Decrees, 
as relative to the United States, to have ceased in No- 
vember, 1810. "Such an act is absolutely necessary to 
the American Government; and, though solicited as an 
accommodation, it may be demanded as a right. If it 
was the duty of France to cease to apply those Decrees 
to the United States, it is equally her duty to promulgate 
it to the world in as formal a manner as we have promul- 
gated our law for the exclusion of British merchandise. 
She ought to declare and publish the non-application of 
these Decrees in the same forms in which she enacted the 
Decrees. The President has instructed me to propose and 
press this object." 

At last the demand was made which should have been 
enforced eighteen months before. After sending the letter, 

1 This letter, whicli is given iu a very mutilated form in the American 
State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 602, has been published in full by 
the Bureau of Historical Research, Carnegie Institution, Washington. Re- 
port on the Diplomatic Archives of the Department of State, 1904, p. 64. 



272 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

Barlow had " a pretty sharp conversation " with Bassano, 
in which he perceived a singuhir reluctance to answer his 
letter. At last the Duke placed before him a Decree, 
drav/n up in due and customary form, dated a year 
before, ^ — -April 28, 1811, — declaring that "the Decrees 
of Berlin and Milan are definitively, and to date from 
the first day of November last, [1810], considered as not 
having existed in regard to American vessels."^ This 
Decree, Bassano said, had been communicated to Russell, 
and also sent to Serrurier, the French minister at Wash- 
ington, with orders to convey it to the American Gov- 
ernment. Both Russell and Serrurier denied ever having 
received the paper.^ 

Barlow made no comment upon the strange manner in 
which this document was produced to him, and confined 
himself to inquiring if it had been published. The reply 
could only be. No; a singular admission with regard to a 
formal paper a year old, and of such importance to all 
concerned. He then asked that a copy might be sent 
him. Upon receipt, he at once hastened it to Russell 
in London, by the sloop of war "Wasp," then lying in a 
French port. He wrote, " You will doubtless render an 
essential service to both Great Britain and the United 
States b}^ communicating it without loss of time to the 
Foreign Secretary. If by this the cause of war should be 
removed, there is an obvious reason for keeping the secret, 
if possible, so long as that the " Wasp" may not bring the 
news to this country in any other manner but in j-our 
despatch. This Government, as you must long have per- 
ceived, wishes not to see that effect produced; and I 
should not probably have obtained the letter and docu- 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 603. 

- Barlow's interview with Bassano, and the letters exchanged, will lie found 
in American State Pajiers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 002-603. IxusscU's 
denial is on p. 614. Serrurier's is mentioned in a Report made to the House 
by Monroe, Secretary of State, ibid., p. 609. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 273 

ments from the Minister, if the Prince Regent's Declara- 
tion had not convinced this Government that the war was 
now become inevitable."^ 

Russell transmitted the Decree to the T>ritish Foreign 
Secretary ^lay 20, 1812. The Government was at the 
moment in confusion, through the assassination, iMay 11, 
of Mr. Perceval, the Prime ^linister; who, though not 
esteemed of the first order of statesmanship by his con- 
temporaries and colleagues, had been found in recent 
negotiations the ouly available man about whom a cabinet 
could unite. A period of suspense followed, in which 
the difficulty of forming a new government, owing to 
personal antagonisms, was complicated by radical differ- 
ences as to public policy, especially in the cardinal point of 
pursuing or relinquishing the war in the peninsula. Not 
till near the middle of June was an arrangement reached. 
The same ministry, substantially, remained in power, 
with Lord Liverpool as premier; Castlereagh continuing 
as Foreign Secretary. This retained in office the party 
identified with the Orders in Council, and favoring armed 
support to the Spanish revolt. 

The delay in settling the government afforded an excuse 
for postponing action upon the newly discovered French 
Decree. It permitted also time for reflection. Just be- 
fore Perceval's death, Russell had noted a firm determina- 
tion to maintain the Orders in Council, conditioned only 
by the late Declaration of April 21 ; but at the same time 
there was evident apprehension of the consequences of war 
with the United States. ^ This, he carefully explained, 
was due to no apprehension of American military power. 
Even Lord Grenville, one of the chief leaders of the Oppo- 
sition, was satisfied that the United States could not con- 
quer Canada. " We are, indeed, most miserably underrated 

1 Barlow to Russell, May 10, 1812. U. S. State Department MSS. 
- Russell to Mouroe, May 9, 1812. Ibid. 
VOL. I. — 18 



274 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

in Europe." "It is not believed here, notwithstanding 
the spirited report of the Committee on Foreign Reki- 
tions, that we shall resort to any definitive measures. 
We have indeed a reputation in Europe for saying so 
much and doing so little that we shall not be believed in 
earnest until we act in a manner not to be mistaken." 
"I am persuaded this Government has presumed much 
on our weakness and divisions, and that it continues to 
believe that we have not energy and union enough to 
make effective war. Nor is this confined to the ministry, 
but extends to the leaders of the Opposition." "JNIr. Per- 
ceval is well known to calculate with confidence that even 
in case of war we shall be obliged to resort to a license 
trade for a supply of British manufactures." "He con- 
siders us incapable even of bearing the privations of a 
state of hostility with England, and much more incapable 
of becoming a formidable enemy." On March 3 Perceval 
in a debate in the House had indicated the most positive 
intentions of maintaining the Orders, and asserted that, in 
consequence of Napoleon's Decrees, Great Britain was no 
longer restrained by the law of nations in the extent or 
form of retaliation to which she may resort upon the 
enemy. "I cannot perceive the slightest indication of 
apprehension of a rupture with the United States, or any 
measure of preparation to meet such an event. Such 
is the conviction of our total inability to make war 
that the five or six thousand troops now in Canada are 
considered to be amply sufficient to protect that prov- 
ince against our mightiest efforts."^ A revolution of 
sentiment was to be noted even in the minds of former 
advocates. Castlereagh, at a levee on March 12, said to 
Russell that the movements in the United States appeared 
to him to be nothing but party evolutions. 

^ The passages cited above are from Kiissell's correspondence with the 
State Department, under the dates of January 10, February 3 and 19, Marcli 
4 and 20, 1812. U. S. State Dcpnrtniout MSS. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 275 

There was, however, another side to the question which 
occasioned more concern to the British ministry. "It is 
the increasing want of our intercourse," wrote Russell 
May 9, "rather than the apprehension of our arms which 
leads to a conciliatory spirit " which he had recently 
noticed. " They will endeavor to avoid the calamity of 
war with the United States by every means which can 
save their pride and their consistency. The scarcity of 
bread in this country, the distress of the manufacturing 
towns, and the absolute dependency of the allied troops 
in the Peninsula on our supplies, form a check on their 
conduct which they can scarcely have the hardihood to 
disregard. "1 Two days after these words were written, the 
murder of Perceval added political anarchy to the embar- 
rassments of the Government. The crisis then impending 
was indeed momentous. War between France and Russia 
was certain. Upon its outcome depended the fall of the 
Continental System, or its prevalence overall Europe in an 
extent and with a rigor never yet reached. "Some of the 
Powers of Europe," said the Emperor, "have not fulfilled 
their promise with respect to the Continental System. I 
must force them to it." In carrying this message to the 
Senate, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said: "In what- 
ever port of Europe a British ship can enter there must be 
a French garrison to prevent it;"^ an interesting com- 
mentary upon the neutral regulations to which the United 
States professed that neither she nor Great Britain had any 
claim to object, because municipal. Great Britain had 
already touched ruin too nearl}- to think lightly of the 
conditions. By her Orders in Council she had so re- 
torted Napoleon's Decrees as to induce him, in order 
still further to enforce them, into the Peninsular War, 

1 Russell to Monroe, IMay 9, 1812. U. S. State Department MSS. 

2 Barlow to Monroe, March 15, 1812. Iliid. Published by Bureau of 
Historical Research, Carnegie Institution, 1904, p. 63. 



276 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

and now into that Avitli liussia. To uphold the hitter, her 
busy negotiators, profiting by his high-handedness, had ob- 
tained for the Czar peace Avith Sweden and Turkey. More 
completely to sustain him, it was essential to support in 
fullest effect the powerful diversion which retained three 
hundred thousand French troops in Spain. To do this, 
the assistance of ^Vmerican food supplies was imperative. 

If peace with the United States could be maintained, 
the triumph of British diplomacy would be unqualified. 
The announcement of the alleged Decree of April 28, 
1811, came therefore most opportunely to save their 
pride and self-consistency. On June 23 Castlereagh 
transmitted to Russell an Order in Council published that 
day, revoking as to the United States the celebrated 
Orders of January 7, 1807, and April 26, 1800. "I am 
to request you,"' ran his letter, "that you will acquaint 
your Government that the Prince Regent's ministers have 
taken the earliest o])portunity^ after the resumptio7i of the 
Government, to advise his Roj-al Highness to the adoption 
of a measure grounded upon the document communicated 
by you to this office on the 20th ultimo ; " ^ that is upon 
the Decree of April 28. No one affected to believe that 
this had been framed at the date it bore. " There was 
something so very much like fraud on the face of it," wrote 
Russell, " that in several conversations which I have since 
had with Lord Castlereagh, particularly at a dinner at the 
Lord Mayor's, when I was placed next his lordship, I have 
taken care not to comuiit the honor of my Government 
by attempting its vindication. When his lordship called 
it a strange proceeding, a new sjjecimen of French diplo- 
macy, a trick unworthy of a civilized government, I have 
merely replied that the motives or good faith of the Gov- 
ernment wliicli issued it, or the real time when it was 

1 American State Tapers, Foreign Kelations, vol. iii. p. 4-'i3. Autlior's 
italics. 



FROM THE ORDERS IX COUNCIL TO WAR 277 

issued, were of little importance as to tlie effect which 
it ought to have here ; that it was sufficient that it con- 
tained a most precise and formal declaration that the 
Berlin and INIilan Decrees were revoked, in relation to 
America, from November 1, 1810."^ 

This was true; but the contention of the I^ritish Gov- 
ernment had been that the 83-stem of the Decrees was one 
whole ; that its effect upon America could not be dissoci- 
ated from that upon continental neutral states, where it 
was enforced under the guise of municipal regulations ; 
and that it must be revoked as a whole, in order to impose 
the repeal of the Orders in Council. This position had 
been reaffirmed in the recent Order of April 21. Opinion 
will therefore differ as to the ministry's success in es- 
caping, under the cover of the new Decree, from the 
dilemma in which they were placed by the irresistible 
agitation against the Orders in Council spreading through 
the nation, and the necessity of avoiding war with the 
United States, if possible, because of the affairs of the 
Peninsula. They made the best of it by alleging, as it 
were, the spirit of the Order of April 21 ; the disposition 
" to take such measures as may tend to re-establish the in- 
tercourse between neutral and belligerent nations upon its 
accustomed principles." For this reason, while avowing 
explicitly that the tenor of the Decree did not meet the 
requirements of the late Order, the Orders in Council 
were revoked from August 1 next following; and vessels 
captured after May 20, the date of Russell's communi- 
cating the Decree, would be released. The ministrj^ thus 
receded gracefully under compulsion; and for their own 
people at least saved their face. 

Superficially the British diplomatic triumph for the 
moment seemed complete. They had withdrawn their 
head from the noose just as it began to tighten; and 

1 Russell to Monroe, Juue 30, 1812. U. S. State Department MSS. 



278 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

they had clone so not on any ground of stringent require- 
ment, l)ut with expressions of desire to go even farther 
than their just claims, in order to promote conciliation. 
Russell naturally felt a moment of bitter discomfiture. 
" In yielding, the ministers appear to have been extremely 
perplexed in seeking for a subterfuge for their credit. 
All their feelings and all their prejudices revolted at the 
idea of publicly bending to the Opposition, or truckling 
to the United States, and they were compelled to seize 
on the French Decree of April 28, 1811, as the only 
means of saving themselves from the degradation of ac- 
knowledging that they were vanquished. Without this 
decree they would have been obliged to yield, and I 
almost regret that it existed to furnish a salvo, miserable 
as it is, for their pride. Our victory, however, is still 
complete, and I trust that those who have refused to sup- 
port our Government in the contest will at least be willing 
to allow it the honors of a triumph." ^ 

Russell wrote under the mistaken impression that the 
repeal of the Orders had come in time to save war; in 
which event the yielding of the British ministry, identi- 
fied as it was with the Orders in Council, might be con- 
strued as a triumph for the system of peaceable coercion, 
by commercial restrictions, which formed the whole policy 
of Jefferson and Madison. The triumph claimed by him 
must be qualified, however, by the reflection that it was 
obtained at the expense of becoming the dupe of a French 
deception, on its face so obvious as to deprive mistake of 
the excuse of plausibility. Tlie eagerness of the Govern- 
ment, and of its representatives abroad, for a diplomatic 
triumph, had precipitated them into a step for which, on 
the grounds taken, no justification existed; and they had 
since then been dragged at the wheels of Napoleon's 
chariot, in a constant dust of mystification, until he had 
1 RussoU to Monroe, June 30, 1812. U. S. State Department MSS. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 279 

finally achieved the end of his scheming and landed them 
in a war for which they were utterly unprepared, and 
which it had been the chief object of commercial reprisals 
to avoid. Thus considered, the triumph was barren. 

On June 1, 1812, President Madison sent to Congress 
a message,^ reciting the long list of international wrongs 
endured at the hands of Great Britain, and recommend- 
ing to the deliberations of Congress the question of peace 
or war. On June 4 the House of Representatives, by a 
vote of seventy-nine yeas to forty-nine nays, declared that 
a state of war existed between the United States and Great 
Britain. The bill then went to the Senate, where it was 
discussed, amended, and passed on June 17, by nineteen 
yeas to thirteen nays. The next day the House concurred 
in the Senate's amendments, and the bill thus passed re- 
ceived the President's signature immediatel}'. The war 
thus began, formally, on June 18, 1812, five days before 
the repeal of the British Orders in Council. 

While the Declaration of War was still under debate, 
the Secretary of War, Eustis, on June 8 reported to the 
Senate that of the ten thousand men authorized as a peace 
establishment, there were in service six thousand seven 
hundred and forty-four. He was unable to state what 
number had been enlisted of the twenty-five thousand 
regulars provided by the legislation of the current ses- 
sion; a singular exhibition of the efficiency of the Depart- 
ment. He had no hesitation, however, in expressing an 
unofficial opinion that there were five thousand of these 
recruits. It is scarce necessary to surmise what the con- 
dition of the army was likely to be, with James Wilkinson 
as the senior general officer of consecutive service, and 
with Dearborn, a man of sixty, and in civil life ever since 
the War of Independence, as the first major-general ap- 
pointed under the new legislation. The navy had a noble 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 405. 



280 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

and competent body of oiilicers, in the prime of life, ii large 
proportion of whom had seen instructive service in the 
Barbary conflict; but, as has been seen. Congress had no 
faith in a navy, and refused it an}' increase. In this dis- 
trust the Administration shared. 

Mr. jSIonroe, indeed, probably through his residence 
abroad, had attained a juster view of the intluence of a 
navy on foreign relations. He has already been quoted 
in this connection,^ but in a letter to a friend, two years 
before 1812, he developed his opinions witli some preci- 
sion. " I gave my opinion that our naval force ought to 
be increased. In advising this, I urged that the naval 
force of the United States ought not to be regulated by 
reference to the navies of the Great Powers, but to the 
strength of the squadrons which they usually stationed in 
time of war on our coasts, at the mouths of great rivers, 
and in our harbors. I thought that such a force, incor- 
porated permanently with our system, would give Aveight 
at all times to our negotiations, and by means thereof pre- 
vent wars and save money." ^ Monroe at this time was 
not in the Administration. Such a policy was diametri- 
cally opposed to that of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin ; 
and when war came, ships had not been provided. Under 
tlie circumstances the disposition of the Government was 
to put the ships they had under a glass case. 

"At the commencement of the war," wrote Monroe to 
Jefferson, "I was decidedly of your opinion, that the 
best disposition which could be made of our little nav}- 
would be to keep it in a body in a safe port, from which 
it might sally, only on some important occasion, to render 
essential service. Its safety, in itself, appeared ;iu im- 
portant object; as, while safe, it formed a check on the 
enemy in all operations along our coast, and increased 

1 Ante, p. 106. 

2 To John Taylor, Sept. 10, 1810. Works of James Monroe, vol. vi. p. 128. 



FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR 281 

proportionately his expense, in the force to be kept up, 
as well to annoy our commerce as to protect his own. 
The reasoning against this, in which all naval officers 
have agreed, is that, if stationed together in a port, — New 
York, for example, — the British would immediately block 
up this, by a force rather superior, and then harass our 
coast and commerce, without restraint, and with any force, 
however small. In that case a single frigate might, by 
cruising along the coast, and menacing continually dif- 
ferent parts, keep in motion great bodies of militia; that, 
while our frigates are at sea, the expectation that they 
may be met together will compel the British to keep in a 
body, whenever they institute a blockade or cruise, a force 
equal at least to our own whole force; that they, [the 
American vessels] being the best sailors, hazard little by 
cruising separately, or togetlier occasionally, as they might 
bring on an action, or avoid one, as they saw fit ; that in 
that measure they would annoy the enemy's commerce 
wherever they went, excite alarm in the West Indies and 
elsewhere, and even give protection to our own trade by 
drawing the enemy's squadron from our own coast. . . . 
The reasoning in favor of each plan is so nearly equal 
that it is hard to say which is best.''^ It is to be hoped 
that the sequel will show which was best, although little 
can be hoped when means, military and naval, have been 
allowed to waste as they had under the essentially un- 
military Administrations since 1801. 

On November 25, 1811, seven months before the war 
began, the Secretary of the Treasury, Gallatin, communi- 
cated to the Senate a report on the State of the Finances,^ 
in which he showed that since 1801, by economies which 
totally crippled the war power of the nation, the public 
debt had been diminished from $80,000,000 to $31, 000, 000, 

1 Monroe to Jefferson, Monroe's Works, vol. v. p. 268. 

2 Annals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 2046. 



282 ANTECEDENTS OF THE WAR 

— a saving of .^46,000,000, which lessened the annual in- 
terest on the debt by -$2,000,000. A good financial show- 
ing, doubtless; but, had there been on hand the troops 
and the ships, which the saved money represented, the 
War of 1812 might have had an issue more satisfactory to 
national retrospect. Gallatin also showed, in this paper, 
that by the restrictive system, enforced against Great 
Britain in consequence of the Administration's decision 
that Napoleon's revocation of his Decrees was real, the 
revenue had dropped from $12,000,000 to $6,000,000; leav- 
ing the nation with a probable deficiency of $2,000,000, 
on the estimate of a year of peace for 1812. 



THE WAR 

CHAPTER V 

THE THEATEE OF 0PEEATI0:J^S 

WAR being now immediately at hand, it is 
advisable, for the better appreciation of the 
course of events, the more accurate estimate 
of their historical and military value, to con- 
sider the relative conditions of the two opponents, the 
probable seats of warlike operations, and the methods 
which it was open to either to pursue. 

Invasion of the British Islands, or of any transmarine 
possession of Great Britain — save Canada — was denied 
to the United States by the immeasurable inferiority of 
her navy. To cross the sea in force was impossible, even 
for short distances. For tliis reason, land operations were 
limited to the North American Continent. This fact, con- 
joined with the strong traditional desire, received from the 
old French wars and cherished in the War of Independ- 
ence, to incorporate the Canadian colonies with the Union, 
determined an aggressive policy by the United States on 
the northern frontier. This was indeed the only distinc- 
tively offensive operation available to her upon the land ; 
consequently it was imposed by reasons of both political 
and military expediency. On the other hand, the sea was 
open to American armed ships, though under certain very 
obvious restrictions ; that is to say, subject to the primary 
difficulty of evading blockades of the coast, and of escaping 
subsequent capture by the very great number of British 



284 THE WAR OF 1812 

cruisers, which watched all seas where British commerce 
went and came, and most of the ports whence hostile ships 
might issue to prey upon it. The principal trannnel which 
now rests \\\)o\\ the movements of vessels destined to cripple 
an enemy's commerce — the necessity to renew tlie motive 
power, coal, at frequent brief intervals — did not then 
exist. The wind, upon which motion depended, might at 
particular moments favor one of two antagonists relatively 
to the other ; but in the long run it was substantialh' tlie 
same for all. In tliis respect all were on an equal footing ; 
and tlie supply, if lickle at times, was practically inex- 
haustible. Barring accidents, vessels were able to keep 
the sea as long as their provisions and water lasted. Tliis 
period may be reckoned as generally three months, wliile 
by watchful administration it might at times be protracted 
to six. 

It is desirable to explain here what was, and is, tlie par- 
ticular specific utility of operations directed toward the 
destruction of an enemy's commerce ; what its bearing upon 
the issues of war ; and how, also, it affects the relative 
interests of antagonists, unequally paired in the matter 
of sea power. Without attempting to determine precisely 
the relative importance of internal and external commerce, 
which varies with each country, and admitting that the 
length of transportation entails a distinct element of in- 
creased cost upon the articles transported, it is neverthe- 
less safe to say that, to nations 'having free access to the 
sea, the export and import trade is a very large factor in 
national prosperit}^ and comfort. At the very least, it in- 
creases by so much the aggregate of commercial transactions, 
while the ease and copiousness of water carriage go far 
to compensate for the increase of distance. Furthermore, 
the public revenue of maritime states is largely derived 
from duties on imports. Hence arises, therefore, a large 
source of wealth, of money ; and money — ready money or 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 285 

substantial credit — is proverbially the sinews of war, as 
the War of 1812 was amply to denionsti'ate. Inconvertible 
iissets, as business men know, are a very inefficacious 
form of wealth in tight times ; and war is always a tight 
time for a country, a time in which its positive wealth, in 
the shape of every kind of produce, is of little use, unless 
by freedom of exchange it can be converted into cash for 
governmental expenses. To this sea-commerce greatly 
contributes, and the extreme embarrassment under which 
the United States as a nation labored in 1814 was mainly 
due to commercial exclusion from the sea. To attack the 
commerce of the enemy is tlierefore to cripple him, in the 
measure of success achieved, in the particular factor wliieh 
is vital to the maintenance of war. Moreover, in the com- 
plicated conditions of mercantile activity no one branch 
€an be seriously injured without involving others. 

This may be called the financial and political effect of 
^'commerce destroying," as the modern phrase runs. In 
]nilitary effect, it is strictly analogous to the impairing 
of an enemy's communications, of the line of supplies 
connecting an army with its base of operations, upon 
the maintenance of which the life of the army depends. 
Money, credit, is the life of war ; lessen it, and vigor flags ; 
destroy it, and resistance dies. No resource tlien remains 
except to " make war support war ; "' that is, to make the 
vanquished pay the bills for the maintenance of the army 
which has crushed him, or which is proceeding to crush 
whatever opposition is left alive. This, by the extraction 
of private money, and of supplies for the use of liis troops, 
from the country in which he was fighting, was the method 
of Napoleon, than whom no man held more delicate views 
concerning the gross impropriety of capturing private prop- 
erty at sea, whither his power did not extend. Yet this, 
in effect, is simply anotlier method of forcing the enemy 
to surrender a large part of his means, so weakening him, 



286 THE WAR OF 1S12 

while transferring it to tlie victor for the better propaga- 
tion of hostilities. The exaction of a pecuniary indemnity 
from the worsted party at the conclusion of a war, as is 
frequently done, differs from the seizAire of property in 
transit afloat only in method, and as peace differs from 
war. In either case, money or money's worth is exacted ; 
but when peace supervenes, the method of collection is left 
to the Government of the country, in pursuance of its 
powei"S of taxation, to distribute the burden among the 
people ; whereas in war, the primary object being immedi- 
ate injury to the enemy's fighting power, it is not only 
legitimate in principle, but particularly effective, to seek 
the disorganization of hLs financial system by a crushing 
attack upon one of its important factors, because effort 
thus is concentrated on a readily accessible, fundamental 
element of his general prosperity. That the loss falls 
directly on individuals, or a class, instead of upon the 
whole community, is but an incident of war, just as some 
men are killed and others not. Indirectly, but none the 
less surely, tlie whole community, and, what is more im- 
portant, the organized government, are crippled; offensive 
powers impaired. 

But while this is the absolute tendency of war against 
commerce, common to all cases, the relative value varies 
greatly with the countries having recourse to it. It is a 
species of hostilities easily extemporized by a great mari- 
time nation ; it therefore favors one whose policy is not to 
maintain a large naval establishment. It opens a field for 
a sea militia force, requiring little antecedent military 
training. Again, it is a logical military reply to commer- 
cial blockade, which is the most systematic, regularized, 
and extensive form of commerce-destruction known to war. 
Commercial blockade is not to be confounded with the 
military measure of confining a body of hostile ships of 
war to their harbor, by stationing before it a competent 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 287 

force. It is directed against merchant vessels, and is not 
a military operation in the narrowest sense, in that it does 
not necessarily involve fighting, nor propose the capture of 
the blockaded harbor. It is not usually directed against 
military ports, unless these happen to be also centres of 
commerce. Its ol)ject, which was the paramount function 
of the United States Navy during the Civil War, deal- 
ing probably the most decisive blow inflicted upon the 
Confederacy, is the destruction of commerce by closing 
the ports of egress and ingress. Incidental to that, all 
ships, neutrals included, attempting to enter or depart, 
after public notification through customary channels, are 
captured and confiscated as remorselessly as could be done 
by the most greedy privateer. Thus constituted, the oper- 
ation receives far wider scope than commerce-destruction 
on the high seas ; for this is confined to merchantmen of 
belligerents, while commercial blockade, by universal con- 
sent, subjects to capture neutrals who attempt to infringe 
it, Ijecause, by attempting to defeat the efforts of one bel- 
ligerent, they make themselves parties to the war. 

In fact, commercial blockade, though most effective as 
a military measure in broad results, is so distinctly com- 
merce-destructive in essence, that those who censure the 
one form must logically proceed to denounce the other. 
This, as has been seen,i Napoleon did; alleging in his 
Berlin Decree, in 1806, that war cannot be extended to any 
private property whatever, and that the right of blockade 
is restricted to fortified places, actually invested by com- 
petent forces. This he had the face to assert, at the very 
moment when he was compelling every vanquished state 
to extract, from the private means of its subjects, coin 
running up to hundreds of millions to replenish his military 
chest for further extension of hostilities. Had this dictum 
been accepted international law in 1861, the United States 

1 Ante, p. 144. 



X 



288 'i^IIE WAR OF 1812 

could not liave closed the ports of the Confederacy, the 
commerce of wliich would have proceeded unmolested ; and 
hostile measures being consequently directed against men's 
persons instead of their trade, victory, if accomplished at 
all, would have cost three lives for every two actually lost. 
It is apparent, immediately on statement, that against 
commerce-destruction by blockade, the recourse of the 
weaker maritime belligerent is commerce-destruction by 
cruisers on the high sea. Granting equal efficiency in the 
use of either measure, it is further plain that the latter is 
intrinsically far less efficacious. To cut off access to a city 
is much more certainly accomplished by holding the gates 
than by scouring the country in search of j^ersons seek- 
ing to enter. Still, one can but do what one can. In 1 861 
to 1865, the Southern Confederacy, unable to shake off 
tlie death grip fastened on its throat, attempted counter- 
action by means of the " Alabama," "Sumter," and their less 
famous consorts, with what disastrous influence upon the 
navigation — the shipping — of the Union it is needless to 
insist. But while the shipping of the opposite belligerent 
was in this way not only crippled, but indirectly was swept 
from the seas, the Confederate cruisers, not being able to 
establish a blockade, could not prevent neutral vessels from 
carrying on the commerce of the Union. This consequently 
suffered no serious interruption ; whereas the produce of 
the South, its inconvertible wealth — cotton chiefly — was 
practically useless to sustain the financiJil system and credit 
of the people. So, in 1812 and the two years following, 
the United States flooded the seas with privateers, produc- 
ing an effect upon British commerce which, though incon- 
clusive singly, doubtless co-operated powerfully with other 
motives to dispose the enemy to liberal terms of peace. It 
was the reply, and the only possible reply, to the connnercial 
blockade, the grinding efficacy of which it will be a prin- 
cipal object of these pages to depict. The issue to us has 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 289 

been accurately characterized by Mr. Henry Adams, in the 
single word " Exhaustion." ^ 

Both parties to the War of 1812 being conspicuously 
maritime in disposition and occupation, while separated by 
three thousand miles of ocean, the sea and its navigable 
approaches became necessarily the most extensive scene of 
operations. There being between them great inequality of 
organized naval strength and of pecuniary resources, they 
inevitably resorted, according to their respective force, 
to one or the other form of maritime hostilities against 
commerce which have been indicated. To this procedure 
combats on the high seas were merely incidental. Tradi- 
tion, professional pride, and the combative spirit inherent 
in both peoples, compelled fighting when armed vessels 
of nearly equal strength met; but such contests, though 
wholly laudable from the naval standpoint, which under 
ordinary circumstances cannot afford to encourage retreat 
from an equal foe, were indecisive of general results, how- 
ever meritorious Aw particular execution. They had no 
effect upon the issue, except so far as they inspired moral 
enthusiasm and confidence. Still more, in the sequel they 
have had a distinctly injurious effect upon national opinion 
in the United States. In the brilliant exhibition of enter- 
prise, professional skill, and usual success, by its naval 
officers and seamen, the country has forgotten the prece- 
dent neglect of several administrations to constitute the 
navy as strong in proportion to the means of the country 
as it was excellent through the spirit and acquirements 
of its officers. Sight also has been lost of the actual con- 
ditions of repression, confinement, and isolation, enforced 
upon the maritime frontier during the greater part of the 
war, with the misery and mortification thence ensuing. It 
has been widely inferred that the maritime conditions in 
general were liighly flattering to national pride, and that 

1 Adams, History of tlie United States, vol. viii. chap. viii. 

VOL. I. — 19 



290 THE WAR OF 1812 

a future emergency could be confronted with the same 
supposed facility, and as little preparation, as the odds of 
1812 are believed to have been encountered and overcome. 
This mental impression, this picture, is false throughout, 
alike in its grouping of incidents, in its disregard of pro- 
portion, and in its ignoring of facts. The truth of this 
assertion will appear in due course of this narrative, and 
it will be seen that, although relieved by many brilliant 
incidents, indicative of the real spirit and capacity of the 
nation, the record upon the whole is one of gloom, disaster, 
and governmental incompetence, resulting from lack of 
national preparation, due to the obstinate and blind pre- 
possessions of the Government, and, in part, of the people. 
This w^as so even upon the water, despite the great names 

— for great they were in measure of their opportunities — 
of Decatur, Hull, Perry, Macdonough, Morris, and a dozen 
others. On shore things were far worse ; for while upon 
the water the country had as leaders men still in the young 
prime of life, wlio were both seamen and officers, — none 
of those just named were then over forty, — the army at 
the beginning had only elderly men, who, if they ever had 
been soldiers in any truer sense than young fighting men, 

— soldiers by training and understanding, — had long since 
disacquired whatever knowledge and habit of the profession 
they had gained in the War of Independence, then more 
than thirty years past. " As far as American movements 
are concerned," said one of Wellington's trusted officers, 
sent to report upon the subject of Canadian defence, " the 
campaign of 1812 is almost beneath criticism." ^ Instructed 
American opinion must sorrow^fully admit the truth of the 
comment. That of 1813 was not much better, although 
some younger men — Brown, Scott, Gaines, Macomb, Ripley 

— were beginning to show their mettle, and there had by 
then been placed at the head of the War Department a 

^ Sir J. Carinichael Sinytli, Precis of Wars in Cauada, p. 116.. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 291 

secretary who at least possessed a reasoned understand- 
ing of the principles of warfare. With every material 
military advantage, save the vital one of adequate prepara- 
tion, it was found too late to prepare when war was already 
at hand ; and after the old inefficients had been given a 
chance to demonstrate their incapacity, it was too late to 
utilize the young men. 

Jefferson, with curious insanity of optimism, had once 
written, "We begin to broach the idea that we consider the 
whole Gulf Stream as of our waters, within which hostili- 
ties and cruising are to be frowned on for the present, and 
prohibited as soon as either consent or force A^"ill permit ; " ^ 
while at the same time, under an unbroken succession of 
maritime humiliations, he of purpose neglected all naval 
preparation save that of two hundred gunboats, which could 
not venture out of sight of land without putting their guns 
in the hold. With like blindness to the conditions to 
which his administration had reduced the nation, he now 
wrote: "The acquisition of Canada this year [1812], as 
far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter 
of marching." ^ This would scarcely have been a misap- 
preciation, had his carp for the army and that of his succes- 
sor given the country in 1812 an effective force of fifteen 
thousand regulars. Great Britain had but forty-five hun- 
dred in all Canada,^ from Quebec to St. Joseph's, near 
Mackinac ; and the American resources in militia were to 
hers as ten to one. But Jefferson and Madison, with their 
Secretary of the Treasury, had reduced the national debt 
between 1801 and 1812 from 180,000,000 to 145,000,000, 

1 To Monroe, May 4, 1806. Jefferson's Writings, Collected and Edited 
by P. L. Ford, vol. viii. p. 450. 

2 Ibid., vol. vi. p. 75. 

^ Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. viii. p. 183. The author is indebted 
to Major General Sir F. Maurice, and Major G. Le M. Gretton, of the British 
Army, for extracts from the official records, from which it appears that, ex- 
cluding provincial corps, not to be accounted regulars, the British troops in 
Canada numbered in January, 1812, 3,952 ; in July, 5,004. 



292 THE WAR OF 1812 

concerning which a Virginia Senator renuuked : " This 
difference has never been felt by society. It has produced 
no effect upon tlie common intercourse among men. For 
my part, I should never have known of the reduction but 
for the annual Treasury Report." ^ Something was learned 
about it, however, in the first year of the war, and the in- 
terest upon the savings was received at Detroit, on the 
Niagara frontier, in the Chesapeake and the Delaware. 

The War of 1812 was very unpopular in certain sections 
of the United States and with certain parts of the com- 
munity. By these, particular fault was found with the in- 
vasion of Canada. " You have declared war, it was said, 
for two principal alleged reasons: one, the general policy of 
the British Government, formulated in the successive Orders 
in Council, to the unjustifiable injury and violation of 
American commerce ; the other, the impressment of sea- 
men from American merchant ships. What have Canada 
and the Canadians to do with eitlier? If war you must, 
carry on your war upon the ocean, the scene of your avowed 
wrongs, and the seat of your adversary's prosperity, and do 
not embroil these innocent regions and people in the com- 
mon ruin which, without adequate cause, you are bringing 
upon your own countrymen, and upon the only nation that 
now upholds the freedom of mankind against that oppres- 
sor of our race, that incarnation of all despotism — Napo- 
leon." So, not without some alloy of self-interest, the 
question presented itself to New England, and so New 
England presented it to the Government and the Southern 
part of the Union ; partly as a matter of honest convic- 
tion, partly as an incident of the factiousness inherent 
in all political opposition, which makes a point wherever 
it can. 

Logically, there may at first appear some reason in these 
arguments. We are bound to believe so, for we cannot 
^ Giles, Annals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 51. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 293 

entirely impeach the candor of our ancestors, who doubt- 
less advanced them with some deo-ree of conviction. The 
answer, of course, is, that when two nations go to war, all 
the citizens of one become internationally the enemies of 
the other. This is the accepted principle of International 
Law, a residuum of the concentrated wisdom of many 
generations of international legists. When war takes the 
place of peace, it annihilates all natural and conventional 
rights, all treaties and compacts, except those which ap- 
pertain to the state of war itself. The warfare of modern 
civilization assures many lights to an enemy, by custom, 
by precedent, by compact ; many treaties bear express 
stipulations that, should war arise between the parties, 
such and such methods of warfare are barred ; but all these 
are merely guaranteed exceptions to the general rule that 
every individual of each nation is the enemy of those of the 
opposing belligerent. 

Canada and the Canadians, being British subjects, be- 
came therefore, however involuntarily, the enemies of tlie 
United States, when the latter decided that the injuries 
received from Great Britain compelled recourse to the 
sword. Moreover, war, once determined, must be waged 
on the principles of war ; and whatever greed of annexation 
may have entered into the motives of the Administration of 
the day, there can be no question that politically and mili- 
tarily, as a war measure, the invasion of Canada was not 
only justifiable but imperative. " In case of war," wrote 
the United States Secretary of State, Monroe, a very few 
days ^ before the declaration, " it might be necessary to in- 
vade Canada ; not as an object of the war, but as a means 
to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion." War now is never 
waged for the sake of mere fighting, simply to see who is 
the better at killing people. The' warfare of civilized 
nations is for the purpose of accomplishing an object, ob- 

1 Juue 13, 1812. Works of James Monroe, vol. v. p. 207. 



294 THE WAR OF 1812 

taining a concession of alleged right from an enemy who 
has proved implacable to argument. He is to be made to 
yield to force what he has refused to reason; and to do 
that, hold is laid upon what is his, either by taking actual 
possession, or by preventing his utilizing what he still may 
retain. An attachment is issued, so to say, or an injunction 
laid, according to circumstances ; as men in law do to en- 
force payment of a debt, or abatement of an injury. If, in 
the attempt to do this, the other nation resists, as it prob- 
ably will, then fighting ensues ; but that fighting is only 
an incident of war. War, in substance, though not perhaps 
in form, began when the one nation resorted to force, quite 
irrespective of the resistance of the other. 

Canada, conquered by the United States, would there- 
fore have been a piece of British property attached ; either 
in compensation for claims, or as an asset in the bargaining 
which precedes a treaty of peace. Its retention even, as a 
permanent possession, would have been justified by the law 
of war, if the military situation supported that course. 
This is a political consideration ; militarily, the reasons 
were even stronger. To Americans the War of 1812 has 
worn the appearance of a maritime contest. This is both 
natural and just ; for, as a matter of fact, not only were 
the maritime operations more pleasing to retrospect, but 
they also were as a whole, and on both sides, far more 
efficient, far more virile, than those on land. Under the 
relative conditions of the parties, however, it ought to have 
been a land war, because of the vastly superior advantages 
on shore possessed by the party declaring war ; and such it 
would have been, doubtless, but for the amazing incom- 
petency of most of the army leaders on both sides, after 
the fall of the British general. Brock, almost at the open- 
ing of hostilities. This incompetency, on the part of the 
United States, is directly attributable to the policy of Jef- 
ferson and Madison ; for had proper attention and develop- 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 295 

ment been given to the army between 1801 and 1812, it 
could scarcely have failed that some indication of men's 
fitness or unfitness v^ould have preceded and obviated the 
lamentable experience of the first two years, when every 
opportunity was favorable, only to be thrown away from 
lack of leadership. That even the defects of preparation, 
extreme and culpable as these were, could have been over- 
come, is evidenced by the history of the Lakes. The 
Governor General, Prevost, reported to the home govern- 
ment in July and August, 1812, that the British still had 
the naval superiority on Erie and Ontario ; ^ but this con- 
dition was reversed by the energy and capacity of the 
American commanders, Chauncey, Perry, and Macdonough, 
utilizing the undeniable superiority in available resources 
— mechanics and transportation — which their territory 
had over the Canadian, not for naval warfare only, but for 
land as well. 

The general considerations that have been advanced are 
sufiicient to indicate what should have been the general 
plan of the war on the part of the United States. Every 
war must be aggressive, or, to use the technical term, of- 
fensive, in military character ; for unless you injure the 
enemy, if you confine yourself, as some of the grumblers 
of that day would have it, to simple defence against his 
efforts, obviously he has no inducement to yield your con- 
tention. Incidentally, however, vital interests must be 
defended, otherwise the power of offence falls with them. 
Every war, therefore, has both a defensive and an offensive 
side, and in an effective plan of campaign each must receive 
due attention. Now, in 1812, so far as general natural 
conditions went, the United States was relatively weak on the 
sea frontier, and strong on the side of Canada. The seaboard 
might, indeed, in the preceding ten years, have been given a 
development of force, by the creation of an adequate navy, 

1 Prevost to Liverpool, July 15, 1812. Canadian Archives, Q. 118. 



296 THE WAR OF 1812 

which would have prevented war, by the obvious danger to 
British interests involved in hostilities. But this had not 
been done ; and Jefferson, by his gunboat policy, building 
some two hundred of those vessels, worthless unless under 
cover of the land, proclaimed by act as by voice his adherence 
to a bare defensive. The sea frontier, therefore, became 
mainly a line of defence, the utility of which primarily was, 
or should have been, to maintain communication with the 
outside world ; to support commerce, which in turn should 
sustain the financial potency that determines the issues of 
war. 

The truth of this observation is shown by one single fact, 
which will receive recurrent mention from time to time in 
the narrative. Owing partly to the necessities of the 
British Government, and partly as a matter of favor ex- 
tended to the New England States, on account of their 
antagonism to the war, the commercial blockade of the 
coast was for a long time — until April 25, 1814 — limited 
to the part between Narragansett Bay and the boundary of 
Florida, tlien a Spanisli colony. During this period, which 
Madison angrily called one of " invidious discrimination 
between different parts of the United States," New England 
was left open to neutral commerce, which the British, to 
supply their own wants, further encouraged by a system of 
licenses, exempting from capture the vessels engaged, eyen 
though American. Owing largely to this, though partly to 
the local development of manufactures caused by the previ- 
ous policy of restriction upon foreign trade, which had 
diverted New England from maritime commerce to manu- 
factures, that section became the distributing centre of the 
Union. In consequence, the remainder of the country was 
practically drained of specie, which set to the northward 
and eastward, the surplusage above strictly local needs 
fiiitling its way to Canada, to ease the very severe necessi- 
ties of the British military autliorities there; for Great 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 297 

Britain, maintaining her own armies in the Spanish penin- 
sula, and supporting in part the alliance against Napoleon 
on the Continent, could spare no coin to Canada. It could 
not go far south, because the coasting trade was de- 
stroyed by the enemy's fleets, and the South could not send 
forward its produce by land to obtain money in return. 
The deposits in Massachusetts banks increased from 
12,671,619, in 1810, to 18,875,589, in 1814; while in tlie 
same years the specie held was respectively $1,561,034 
and 16,393,718.1 

It was a day of small things, relatively to present gigantic 
commercial enterprises ; but an accumulation of cash in 
one quarter, coinciding with penury in another, proves 
defect in circulation consequent upon embarrassed commu- 
nications. That flour in Boston sold for $12.00 the barrel, 
while at Baltimore and Richmond it stood at $6.50 and 
$4.50, tells the same tale of congestion and deficiency, due 
to interruption of water communication ; the whole prov- 
ing that, under the conditions of 1812, as the United 
States Government had allowed them to become, through 
failure to foster a navy by which alone coast defence in 
the true sense can be effected, the coast frontier was essen- 
tially the weak point. There Great Britain could put forth 
her enormous naval strength with the most sensible and 
widespread injury to American national power, as repre- 
sented in the financial stability which constitutes the sinews 
of war. Men enough could be had ; there were one hundred 
thousand registered seamen belonging to the country ; but 
in the preceding ten years the frigate force had decreased 
from thirteen of that nominal rate to nine, while the only 
additions to the service, except gunboats, were two sloops 
of war, two brigs, and four schooners. The construction of 
ships of the line, for six of which provision had been made 
under the administration which expired in 1801, was aban- 

1 Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 195. 



298 THE WAR OF 1S12 

cloned immediately by its successor. There was no navy 
for defence. 

Small vessels, under which denomination most frigates 
should be included, have their appropriate uses in a naval 
establishment, but in themselves are inadequate to the 
defence of a coast-line, in the true sense of the word 
" defence." It is one of the first elements of intelligent 
warfare that true defence consists in imposing upon the 
enemy a wholesome fear of yourself. "The best protec- 
tion against the enemy's fire," said Farragut, "is a rapid 
fire from our own guns." " No scheme of defence," said 
Napoleon, "can be considered efficient that does not pro- 
vide the means of attacking the enemy at an opportune 
moment. In the defence of a river, for instance," he 
continues, " you must not only be able to withstand its 
passage by the enemy, but must keep in your own hands 
means of crossing, so as to attack him, when occasion 
either offers, or can be contrived." In short, you must 
command either a bridge or a ford, and have a disposable 
force ready to utilize it by attack. The fact of such 
preparation fetters every movement of the enemy. 

At its very outbreak the War of 1812 gave an illustra- 
tion of the working of this principle. Tiny as was the 
United States Navy, the opening of hostilities found it 
concentrated in a body of several frigates, with one or two 
sloops of war, which put to sea together. The energies 
of (ireat Britain being then concentrated upon the navy 
of Napoleon, her available force at Halifax and Bermuda 
was small, and the frigates, of which it was almost wholly 
composed, were compelled to keep together ; for, if tiiey 
attempted to scatter, in order to watch several commercial 
ports, they were exposed to capture singly by this rela- 
tively numerous body of American cruisers. The narrow 
escape of the frigate "Constitution " from the British squad- 
ron at this moment, on her way from the Chesapeake to 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 2i)9 

New York, which port she was unable to gain, exemplifies 
precisely the risk of dispersion that the British frigates 
did not dare to face while their enemy was believed to 
be at hand in concentrated force. They being compelled 
thus to remain together, the ports were left open ; and 
the American merchant ships, of which a great number 
were then abroad, returned with comparative impunity, 
though certainly not entirely without losses. 

This actual experience illustrates exactly the principle 
of coast defence by the power having relatively the weaker 
navy. It cannot, indeed, drive away a body numerically 
much stronger; but, if itself respectable in force, it can 
compel the enemy to keep united. Thereby is minimized 
the injury caused to a coast-line by the dispersion of the 
enemy's force along it in security, such as was subsequently 
acquired by the British in 1813-14, and by the United 
States Navy during the Civil War. The enemy's fears 
defend the coast, and protect the nation, by securing the 
principal benefit of the coast-line — coastwise and mari- 
time trade, and the revenue thence proceeding. In order, 
however, to maintain this imposing attitude, the defending 
state must hold ready a concentrated force, of such size 
that the enemy cannot safely divide his own — a force, 
for instance, such as that estimated by Gouverneur Morris, 
twenty years before 1812.^ The defendant fleet, further, 
must be able to put to sea at a moment inconvenient to 
the enemy; must have the bridge or ford Napoleon re- 
quired for his army. Such the United States had in her 
seaports, which with moderate protection could keep an 
enemy at a distance, and from which escape was possible 
under conditions exceedingly dangerous for the detached 
hostile divisions ; but although possessing these bridge heads 
leading to the scene of ocean war, no force to issue from 
them existed. In those eleven precious years during which 

1 Aote, p. 71. 



300 THE WAR OF 1S12 

Great Briiain by American official returns had captured 
917 American ships,^ a large proportion of them in defiance 
of International Law, as was claimed, and had impressed 
from American vessels 6,257 seamen,^ asserted to be 
mostly American citizens, the United States had built two 
sloops of 18 guns, and two brigs of 16 ; and out of twelve 
frigates had permitted three to rot at their moorings. To 
build ships of the line had not even been attempted. Con- 
sequently, except when weather drove them off, puny 
divisions of British ships gripped each commercial port 
by the throat with perfect safety ; and those weather occa- 
sions, which constitute the opportunity of the defendant 
sea power, could not be improved l)y military action. 

Such in general was the condition of the sea frontier, 
thrown inevitably upon the defensive. With the passing 
comment tliat, had it been defended as suggested, (ireat 
Britain would never have forced the war, let us now con- 
sider conditions on the Canadian line, where circumstances 
eminently favored the offensive by the United States ; 
for this war should not be regarded simply as a land war 
or a naval war, nor yet as a war of offence and again one 
of defence, but as being continuously and at all times both 
offensive and defensive, both land and sea, in reciprocal 
influence. 

Disregarding as militarily unimportant the artificial 
boundary dividing Canada from New York, Vermont, and 
tlie eastern parts of the Union, the frontier separating the 
land positions of the two belligerents was the Great Lakes 
and the river St. Lawrence. This presented certain 
characteristic and unusual features. Tliat it was a water 

1 American State Papers, Foreign Kelations, vol. iii. p. 584. 

2 Niles' IJegister, vol. ii. p. 119. "Official Heturus iu the Department of 
State" are alleged as autlioritj' for the statement. Monroe to Foster, May 30, 
1812, mentions "a list in this office of several thousand American seamen 
who have been impressed into tlie British service." American State Papers, 
Foreign Kelations, vol. iii. p. 454. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 301 

line was a condition not uncommon ; but it was excep- 
tionally marked by those broad expanses which constitute 
inland seas of great size and depth, navigable by vessels 
of the largest sea-going dimensions. This water system, 
being continuous and in continual progress, is best con- 
ceived by applying to the whole, from Lake Superior to 
the ocean, the name of the great river, the St. Lawrence, 
which on the one hand unites it to the sea, and on the 
other divides the inner waters from the outer by a barrier 
of rapids, impassable to ships that otherwise could navigate 
freely both lakes and ocean. 

The importance of the lakes to military operations must 
always be great, but it was much enhanced in 1812 by the 
undeveloped condition of land communications. With 
the roads in the state they then were, the movement of 
men, and still more of supplies, was vastly more rapid by 
water than by land. Except in winter, when iron-bound 
snow covered the ground, the routes of Upper Canada 
were well-nigh impassable ; in spring and in autumn rains, 
wholly so to heavy vehicles. The mail from Montreal to 
York, — now Toronto, — three hundred miles, took a month 
in transit.^ In October, 1814, when the war was virtually 
over, the British General at Niagara lamented to the 
Commander-in-Chief that, owing to the refusal of the 
navy to carry troops, an important detachment was left 
"to struggle through the dreadful roads from Kingston 
to York." 2 " Should reinforcements and provisions not 
arrive, the naval commander would," in his opinion, " have 
much to answer for." ^ The Commander-in-Chief himself 
wrote : " The command of the lakes enables the enemy to 
perform in two days what it takes the troops from Kingston 

1 Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. viii. p. 111. 

2 Drumniond to Prevost, Oct. 20, 1814. lieport on Canadian Archives, 
1896, Upper Canada, p. 9. 

3 Ibid., Oct. 1.5. 



302 THE WAR OF 1S12 

sixteen to twenty days of severe marching. Their men 
arrive fresh ; ours fatigued, and with exhausted equipment. 
The distance from Kingston to the Niagara frontier exceeds 
two hundred and fifty miles, and part of the way is impi-acti- 
cable for supphes." ^ On the United Stiites side, road con- 
ditions were similar but much less disadvantageous. The 
water route by Ontario was greatly preferred as a means of 
transportation, and in parts and at certain seasons was 
indispensable. Stores for Saekett's Harbor, for instance, 
had in early summer to be brought to Oswego, and tlience 
coasted along to their destination, in secuiity or in peril, 
according to the momentary predominance of one party 
or the other on the lake. In hke manner, it was more 
convenient to move between the Niagara frontier and the 
east end of the lake by water; but in case of necessity, 
men could march. An Enghsh traveller in 1818 says : " I 
accomplished the journey from Albany to Buffalo in 
October in six days with ease and comfort, whereas in 
May it took ten of great difficulty and distress." ^ In the 
farther West the American armies, though much impeded, 
advanced securely through Ohio and Indiana to the shores 
of Lake Erie, and there maintained themselves in supphes 
sent over-country ; whereas the British at the western end 
of the lake, opposite Detroit, depended wholly upon the 
water, although no hostile force threatened the land line 
between them and Ontario. The battle of Lake Erie, so 
disastrous to their cause, was forced upon them purely 
by failure of food, owing to the appearance of Perry's 
squadron. 

From Lake Superior to the head of the first rapid of the 
St. Lawrence, therefore, the control of the water was the 
decisive factor in the general military situation. Both on 

^ Prevost to Bathurst, Aug. 14, 1814. Report ou Canadian Archives, 
1896, Lower Canada, p. .'^(l. 

2 Travels, J. M. Duncan, vol. ii. p. 27. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 303 

the upper lakes, where water communication from Sault 
Sainte Marie to Niagara was unbroken, and on Ontario, 
separated from the others by the falls of Niagara, the Brit- 
ish had at the outset a slight superiority, but not beyond 
the power of the United States to overtake and outpass. 
Throughout the rapids, to Montreal, military conditions 
resembled those which confront a general charcjed with 
the passage of any great river. If undertaken at all, such 
an enterprise requires the deceiving of the opponent as to 
the place and time when the attempt will be made, the care- 
ful provision of means and disposition of men for instant 
execution, and finally the prompt and decisive seizure of 
opportunity, to transfer and secure on the opposite shore a 
small body, capable of maintaining itself until the bulk 
of the army can cross to its support. Nothing of the sort 
was attempted here, or needed to be undertaken in this 
war. Naval superiority determined the ability to cross 
above the rapids, and there was no occasion to consider 
the question of crossing between them. Immediately be- 
low the last lay Montreal, accessible to sea-going vessels 
from the ocean. To that point, therefore, the sea power of 
Great Britain reached, and there it ended. 

The United States Government was conscious of its 
great potential superiority over Canada, in men and in 
available resources. So evident, indeed, was the disparity^ 
that the prevalent feeling was not one of reasonable self- 
reliance, but of vainglorious self-confidence ; of dependence 
upon mere bulk and weight to crush an opponent, quite 
irrespective of preparation or skill, and disregardful of 
the factor of military efficiency. Jefferson's words have 
already been quoted. Calhoun, then a youthful member 
of Congress, and a foremost advocate of the war, said in 
March, 1812 : " So far from being unprepared, Sir, I believe 
that in four weeks from the time a declaration of war is 
heard on our frontier, the whole of Upper Canada *' — half- 



304 THE WAR OF 1S12 

way down the St. Lawrence — " and a part of Lower Can- 
ada will be in our power." This tone was general in 
Congress; Henry Clay spoke to the same effect. Grant- 
ing due preparation, such might indeed readily have been 
the result of a well-designed, active, offensive campaign. 
Little hope of any other result was lield by the British local 
officials, and what little they had was based upon the known 
want of militar}'- efficiency in the United States. Brock, by 
far the ablest among them, in February declared his " full 
conviction that unless Detroit and Michilimackinac be both 
in our possession at the commencement of hostilities, not 
only Amherstburg " — on the Detroit River, a little below 
Detroit — " but most probably the whole country, must be 
evacuated as far as Kingston."^ This place is at the foot 
of Ontario, close to the entrance to the St. Lawrence, Hav- 
ing a good and defensible harbor, it had been selected for 
the naval station of the lake. If successful in holding it, 
there would be a base of operations for attempting recovery 
of the water, and ultimately of the upper country. Failing 
there, of course the British must fall back upon the sea, 
touch with which they would regain at Montreal, resting 
there upon the navy of their nation ; just as Wellington, 
by the same dependence, had maintained himself at Lisbon 
unshaken by the whole power of Napoleon. 

There was, however, no certainty tliat the Lisbon of 
Canada would be found at Montreal. Though secure on 
the water side, there were there no lines of Torres Vedras ; 
and it was well within the fears of the governors of Can- 
ada that under energetic attack their forces would not be 
able to make a stand short of Quebec, against the over- 
whelming numbers which might be brought against them. 
In December, 1807, Governor General Craig, a soldier of 
tried experience and reputation, had written : " Defective 
as it is, Quebec is the only post that can be considered ten- 

1 Life of Sir Isaac Brock, p. 127. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 305 

able for a moment. If the Americans should turn their 
attention to Lower Canada, which is most probable, I have 
no hopes that the forces here can accomplish more than to 
check them for a short time. They will eventually be com- 
pelled to take refuge in Quebec, and operations must ter- 
minate in a siege." ^ Consequent upon this report of a 
most competent officer, much had been done to strengthen 
the works ; but pressed by the drain of the Peninsular War, 
heaviest in the years 1809 to 1812, when France elsewhere 
was at peace, little in the way of troops had been sent. As 
late as November 16, 1812, the Secretary for War, in Lon- 
don, notified Governor General Prevost that as yet he could 
give no hopes of reinforcements.^ Napoleon had begun 
his retreat from Moscow three weeks before, but the full 
effects of the impending disaster were not yet forecast. 
Another three weeks, and the Secretary wrote that a mod- 
erate detachment would be sent to Bermuda, to await there 
the opening of the St. Lawrence in the spring.^ But 
already the United States had lost Mackinac and Detroit, 
and Canada had gained time to breathe. 

Brock's remark, expanded as has here been done, defines 
the decisive military points upon the long frontier from 
Lake Superior to Montreal. Mackinac, Detroit, Kingston, 
Montreal — these four places, together with adequate de- 
velopment of naval strength on the lakes — constituted the 
essential elements of the military situation at the open- 
ing of hostilities. Why ? Mackinac and Detroit because, 
being situated upon extremely narrow parts of the vital 
chain of water communication, their possession controlled 
decisively all transit. Held in force, they commanded the 
one great and feasible access to the northwestern country. 
Upon them turned, therefore, the movement of what was 
then its chief industry, the fur trade ; but more important 

1 Report on Canadian Archives, 1893, Lower Canada, p. 1. 
- Ibid., p. 75. 3 Ibid. 

VOL. I. — :20 



306 THE WAR OF 1812 

still, the tenure of those points so affected the interests of 
the Indians of tliat region as to throw them necessarily 
on the side of the party in possession. It is difhcult for 
us to realize how heavily this considcKirtion weiglied at 
that day with both nations, but especially with the British ; 
because, besides being locally the weaker, they knew that 
under existing conditions in Europe — Napoleon still in 
the height of his power, never yet vanquished, and about 
to undertake the invasion of Russia — they had nothing 
to hope from tlie mother country. Yet the leaders, largely 
professional soldiers, faced the situation with soldierly in- 
stinct. "If we could destroy the American posts at 
Detroit and Michilimackinac," wrote Lieutenant-Governor 
Gore of Upper Canada, to Craig, in 1808, " many Indians 
would declare for us ; " and he agrees with Craig that, " if 
not for us, they will surely be against us." ^ 

It was Gore's successor. Brock, that wrested from the 
Americans at once the two places named, with the effect 
upon the Indians which had been anticipated. The de- 
pendence of these upon this water-line communication 
was greatly increased by various punitive expeditions by 
the United States troops in the Northwest, under General 
Harrison, in the autumn and winter of 1812-13. To 
secure further the safety of the whites in the outer settle- 
ments, the villages and corn of the hostile natives were laid 
waste for a considerable surrounding distance.^ They were 
thus forced to remove, and to seek shelter in the North- 
west. This increase of population in that quarter, rela- 
tively to a store of food never too abundant, made it the 
more urgent for them to remain friends of those witli 
whom it rested to permit the water traffic, by which sup- 
plies could come forward and the exchange of commodities 
go on. The fall of Michilimackinac, therefore, determined 

1 Report on Canadian Archives, 1893, Lower Canada, p. 3. 
"^ Brackenritlge, War of 1812, pp. 57, 63, 65, 66. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 307 

tlieir side, to which the existing British naval command 
of the upper lakes also contributed ; and these causes 
were alleged by Hull in justitication of his surrender at 
Detroit, which completed and secured the enemy's grip 
throughout the Northwestern frontier. This accession of 
strength to the British was not without very serious draw- 
backs. Shortly before the battle of Lake Erie the British 
commissaries were feeding fourteen thousand Indians — 
men, women, and children. What proportion of these 
were warriors it is hard to say, and harder still how many 
could be counted on to take the field when wanted ; but 
it is probable that the exhaustion of supplies due to this 
cause more than compensated for any service received from 
them in war. When Barclay sailed to fight Perry, there 
remained in store but one day's flour, and the crews of his 
ships had been for some days on half allowance of many 
articles. 

The opinion of competent soldiers on the spot, such as 
Craig and Brock, in full possession of all the contemporary 
facts, may be accepted explicitly as confirming the infer- 
ences which in any event might have been drawn from the 
natural features of the situation. Upon Mackinac and De- 
troit depended the control and quiet of the Northwestern 
country, because they commanded vital points on its line of 
communication. Upon Kingston and Montreal, by their 
position and intrinsic advantages, rested tlie communication 
of all Canada, along and above the St. Lawrence, with the 
sea power of Great Britain, whence alone could be drawn 
the constant support without which ultimate defeat should 
have been inevitable. Naval power, sustained upon the 
Great Lakes, controlled the great line of communication 
between the East and West, and also conferred upon the 
party possessing it the strategic advantage of interior lines ; 
that is, of shorter distances, both in length and time, to 
move from point to point of the lake shores, close to which 



308 'i'HE WAR OF 1813 

lay the scenes of operations. It followed that Detroit and 
Michilimackinac, being at the beginning in the possession 
of the United States, should have been fortified, garrisoned, 
provisioned, in readiness for siege, and placed in close com- 
munication with home, as soon as war was seen to be immi- 
nent, which it was in December, 1811, at latest. Having 
in that quarter everything to lose, and comparatively little 
to gain, the country was thro^Ti on the defensive. On the 
east the possession of Montreal or Kingston would cut off 
all Canada above from support by the sea, which would be 
equivalent to insuring its fall. " I shall continue to exert 
myself to the utmost to overcome every difficult}^" wrote 
Brock, who gave such emphatic proof of energetic and saga- 
cious exertion in his subsequent course. " Should, how- 
ever, the communication between Montreal and Kingston 
be cut off, the fate of the troops in this part of the province 
will be decided." ^ " The Montreal frontier," said the offi- 
cer selected by the Duke of Wellington to report on the 
defences of Canada, " is the most unportant, and at present 
[1826] confessedly most vulnerable and accessible part of 
Canada." ^ There, then, was the direction for offensive 
operations by the United States; preferably against Mon- 
treal, for, if successful, a much larger region would be iso- 
lated and reduced. Montreal gone, Kingston could receive 
no help from without ; and, even if capable of temporary 
resistance, its surrender would be but a question of time. 
Coincidently Avith this military advance, naval develop- 
ment for the control of the lakes should have proceeded, as 
a discreet precaution ; although, after the fall of Kingston 
and Montreal, there could have been little use of an inland 
navy, for tlie British local resources would then have been 
inadequate to maintain an opposing force. 

Considered apart from the question of military readiness, 

1 Life of Brock, p. 193. 

- Smyth, Precis of the Wars in Canada, p. 167. 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 309 

in which the United States was so lamentably deficient, the 
natural advantages in her possession for the invasion of 
Canada were very great. The Hudson River, Lake George, 
and Lake Charaplain furnished a line of water communica- 
tion, for men and supplies, from the very heart of the re- 
sources of the country, centring about New York. This 
was not indeed continuous; but it was consecutive, and 
well developed. Almost the whole of it lay within United 
States territory; and when the boundary line on Cham- 
plain was .reached, Montreal was but forty miles distant. 
Towards Kingston, also, there was a similar line, by way 
of the Mohawk River and Lake Oneida to Oswego, whence 
a short voyage on Ontario reached the American naval 
station at Sackett's Harbor, thirty miles from Kingston. 
As had been pointed out six months before the war began, 
by General Armstrong, who became the United States Sec- 
retary of War in January, 1813, when the most favorable 
conditions for initiative had already been lost, these two 
lines were identical as far as Albany. " This should be 
the place of rendezvous ; because, besides other recom- 
mendations, it is here that all the roads leading from the 
central portion of the United States to the Canadas di- 
verge — a circumstance which, while it keeps up your 
enemy's doubts as to your real point of attack, cannot fail 
to keep his means of defence in a state of division." ^ The 
perplexity of an army, thus uncertain upon which extreme 
of a line one hundred and fifty miles long a blow will fall, 
is most distressing ; and trebly so when, as in this case, the 
means of communication from end to end are both scanty 
and slow. " The conquest of Lower Canada," Sir James 
Craig had written, " must still be effected by way of Lake 
Champlain ; " but while this was true, and dictated to the 
officer charged with the defence the necessity of keeping 

1 Armstrong to Eustis, Jan. 2, 1812, Armstrong's Notices of the War of 
1812, vol. i. p. 238. 



310 THE WAR OF 1812 

the greater part of his force in that quarter, it would be 
impossible wlioUy to neglect the exposure of the upper 
section. This requirement was reflected in the disposition 
of the British forces when war began ; two thirds being 
below Montreal, chiefly at Quebec, the remainder dispersed 
through Upper Canada. To add to these advantages of 
the United States, trivial as was the naval force of either 
party on Champlain, the preponderance at this moment, 
and throughout the first year, was in lier hands. She was 
also better situated to enlarge her squadrons on all the 
lakes, because nearer the heart of her power. 

Circumstances thus had determined that, in general plan, 
the seaboard represented the defensive scene of campaign 
for the United States, while the land frontier should be 
that of offensive action. It will be seen, with particular 
reference to the latter, that the character of the front of 
operations prescribed the offensive in great and concen- 
trated force toward the St. Lawrence, with preparations 
and demonstrations framed to keep the enemy doubtful to 
the last possible moment as to where the blow should fall ; 
while on the western frontier, from Michilimackinac to 
Niagara, the defensive should have been maintained, quali- 
fying this term, however, by the already quoted maxim of 
Napoleon, that no offensive disposition is complete which 
does not keep in view, and provide for, offensive action, if 
opportunity offer. Such readiness, if it leads to no more, 
at least compels the opponent to retain near by a degree 
of force that weakens by so much his resistance in the 
other quarter, against which the real offensive campaign is 
directed. 

Similarly, the seaboard, defensive in general relation to 
tlie national plan as a whole, must have its own particular 
.sphere of offensive action, without which its defensive 
function is enfeebled, if not paralyzed. Having failed to 
create before the war a competent navy, capable of seizing 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 311 

opportunity, when offered, to act against hostile divisions 
throughout the world, it was not possible afterwards 
to retrieve this mistake. Under the circumstances exist- 
ing in 1812, the previous decade having been allowed by tlie 
country to pass in absolute naval indifference, offensive 
measures were necessarily confined to the injury of the 
enemy's commerce. Had a proper force existed, abundant 
opportunity for more military action was sure to occur. 
The characteristics of parts of the American coast pre- 
vented close blockade, especially in winter ; and the same 
violent winds which forced an enemy's ships off, facilitated 
egress under circumstances favoring evasion. Escape to 
the illimitable ocean then depended at worst upon speed. 
This was the case at Boston, which Commodore Bainbridge 
before the war predicted could not be effectually block- 
aded; also at Narragansett, recommended for the same 
reason by Commodore John Rodgers; and in measure at 
New York, though there the more difficult and shoaler bar 
involved danger and delay to the passage of heavy frigates. 
In this respect the British encountered conditions contrary 
to those they had know before the French Atlantic ports, 
where the wind which drove the blockaders off prevented 
the blockaded from leaving. Once out and away, a squad- 
ron of respectable force would be at liberty to seek and 
strike one of the minor divisions of the enemj^, imposing 
caution as to how he dispersed his ships in face of such 
a chance. To the south, both the Delaware and Chesa- 
peake could be sealed almost hermetically by a navy so 
superior as was that of Great Britain ; for the sheltered 
anchorage within enabled a fleet to lie with perfect safety 
across the path of all vessels attempting to go out or in. 
South of this again, Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, 
though useful commercial harbors, had not the facilities, 
natural or acquired, for sustaining a military navy. They 
were not maritime centres ; the commerce of the South, 



312 THE WAR OF 1812 

even of Baltimore with its famous schooners, being in 
peace carried on chiefly by shipping which belonged else- 
where — New England or foreign. The necessities of 
a number of armed ships could not there be supplied; 
and furthermore, the comparatively moderate weather 
made the coast at once more easy and less dangerous for 
an enemy to approach. These ports, therefore, were en- 
tered only occasionally, and then by the smaller American 
cruisers. 

For these reasons the northern portion of the coast, with 
its rugged shores and tempestuous weather, was the base 
of such offensive operations as the diminutive numbei-s of 
the United States Navy permitted. To it tlie national 
ships sought to return, for they could enter with greater 
security, and had better prospects of getting out again 
when they wished. In the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and 
on the Southern coast, the efforts of the United States were 
limited to action strictly, and even narrowly, defensive in 
scope. Occasionally, a very small enemy's cruiser might 
be attacked ; but for the most part people were content 
merely to resist aggression, if attempted. The harrying of 
the Chesapea,ke, and to a less extent of the Delaware, are 
familiar stories ; the total destruction of the coasting trade 
and the consequent widespread distress are less known, or 
less remembered. What is not at all appreciated is the 
deterrent effect upon the perfect liberty enjcyed by the 
enemy to do as they pleased, which would have been 
exercised by a respectable fighting navy ; by a force in the 
Northern ports, equal to the offensive, and ready for it, at 
the time that Great Britain was so grievously preoccupied 
by the numerous fleet which Napoleon had succeeded in 
equipping, from Antwerp round to Venice. Of course, 
after his abdication in 1814, and the release of the British 
navy and army, there was nothing for the country to do, 
in the then military strength of the two nations, save to 



THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS 313 

make peace on the best terms attainable. Having allowed 
to pass away, unresented and unimproved, years of insult, 
injury, and opportunity, during which the gigantic power 
of Napoleon would have been a substantial, if inert, sup- 
port to its own efforts at redress, it was the mishap of the 
United States Government to take up arms at the very 
moment when the great burden which her enemy had been 
bearing for years was about to fall from his shoulders 
forever. 



CHAPTER VI 

EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS: THE "CON- 
STITUTION" AND "GUERRIERE." HULL'S 
OPERATIONS AND SURRENDER 

WAR was declared on June 18. On the 21st 
there was lying in the lower harbor of New 
York a division of five United States vessels 
under the command of Commodore John 
Rodgers. It consisted of three frigates, the " President " 
and " United States," rated of 44 guns, the " Congress " 
of 38, the ship-rigged sloop of war " Hornet " of 18, and 
the brig " Argus " of 16. This division, as it stood, was 
composed of two squadrons ; that of Rodgers himself, and 
that of Commodoi'e Stephen Decatur, the latter having 
assigned to him immediately the "United States," the 
*' Congress," and the " Argus." There belonged also to 
Rodgers' particular squadron the " Essex," a frigate rated 
at 32 guns. Captain David Porter, one of the most dis- 
tinguished names in American naval annals, commanded 
her then, and until her capture by a much superior force, 
nearly two years later ; but at this moment she was under- 
going repairs, a circumstance which prevented her from 
accompanying the other vessels, and materially affected her 
subsequent history. 

It may be mentioned, as an indication of naval poUcy, 
that although Rodgers and Decatur each had more than 
one vessel under liis control, neither was given the further 
privilege and distinction, frequent in such cases, of having 
a captain to command the particular ship on which he 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 315 

himself sailed. This, when done, introduces a very sub- 
stantial change in the position of the officer affected. He 
is removed from being only first among several equals, 
and is advanced to a superiority of grade, in which he 
stands alone, with consequent enhancement of authority. 
Rodgers was captain of the " President " as well as commo- 
dore of the small body of vessels assigned to him ; Decatur 
held the same relation to the frigate " United States," and 
to her consorts. Tliough apparently trivial, the circum- 
stance is not insignificant ; for it indicates clearly that, so 
far as the Navy Department then had any mind, it had not 
yet made it up as to whether it would send out its vessels 
as single cruisers, or combine them into divisions, for the 
one operation open to the United States Navy, namely, the 
destruction of the enemy's commerce. With divisions 
permanently constituted as such, propriety and effective 
action would liave required the additional dignity for the 
officer in general charge, and they themselves doubtless 
would have asked for it ; but for ships temporarily associ- 
ated, and liable at any moment to be scattered, not only 
was the simple seniority of naval rank sufficient, but more 
would have been inexpedient. The commodores, now 
such only by courtesy and temporary circumstance, would 
suffer no derogation if deprived of ships other tlian their 
own; whereas the more extensive function, similarly cur- 
tailed, would become a mere empty show, a humiliation 
which no office, civil or military, can undergo without harm. 
This indecision of the Department reflected the varying 
opinions of the higher officers of the service, which in turn 
but reproduced different schools of thought throughout all 
navies. Historically, as a military operation, for the in- 
jury of an enemy's commerce and the protection of one's 
own, it may be considered fairly demonstrated that vessels 
grouped do more effective work than the same number 
scattered. This is, of course, but to repeat the general 



316 THE WAR OF 1812 

military teaching of operations of all kinds. It is not the 
keeping of the several vessels side by side that constitutes 
the virtue of this disposition ; it is the placing them under 
a single head, thereby insuring co-operation, however 
widely dispersed by their common chief under the emergency 
of successive moments. Like a fan that opens and shuts, 
vessels thus organically bound together possess the power 
of wide sweep, which insures exertion over a great field of 
ocean, and at the same time that of mutual support, because 
dependent upon and controlled from a common centre. 
Such is concentration, reasonably understood ; not huddled 
together like a drove of cattle, but distributed with a regard 
to a common purpose, and linked together by the effectual 
energy of a single will. 

There is, however, in the human mind an inveterate 
tendency to dispersion of effort, due apparently to the wish 
to do at once as many things as may be ; a disposition also 
to take as many chances as possible in an apparent lottery, 
with the more hope that some one of them will come up 
successful. Not an aggregate big result, and one only, 
whether hit or miss, but a division of resources and powers 
which shall insure possible compensation in one direction 
for what is not gained, or may even be lost, in another. 
The Navy Department, when hostilities were imminent, 
addressed inquiries to several prominent officers as to the 
best means of employing the very small total force avail- 
able. The question involved the direction of effort, as 
well as the method ; but as regards the former of these, the 
general routes followed by British commerce, and the 
modes of protecting it, were so far understood as to leave 
not much room for differences of opinion. 

Rodgers may have been unconsciously swayed by the 
natural bias of an officer whose seniority would insure him 
a division, if the single-cruiser policy did not prevail. Of 
the replies given, however, his certainly was the one most 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 317 

consonant with sound military views. ^ Send a small 
squadron, of two or three frigates and a sloop, to cruise on 
the coast of the British Islands, and send the light cruisers 
to the West Indies ; for, though he did not express it, in 
the gentle breezes and smooth seas of the tropics small 
cruisers have a much better chance to avoid capture by big 
ships than in the heavy gales of the North Atlantic. This 
much may be termed the distinctly offensive part of Rod- 
gers' project. For the defensive, employ the remainder 
of the frigates, singly or in squadron, to guard our own 
seaboard ; either directly, by remaining off the coast, or b}^ 
taking position in the track of the trade between Great 
Britain and the St. Lawrence. Irrespective of direct cap- 
tures there made, this course would contribute to protect 
the access to home ports, by drawing away the enemy's 
ships of war to cover their own threatened commerce. 
Alike in the size of his foreign squadron, and in the 
touch of uncertainty as to our own coasts, "singly or in 
squadron," Rodgers reflected the embarrassment of a man 
whose means are utterly inadequate to the work he wishes 
to do. One does not need to be a soldier or a seaman to 
comprehend the difficulty of making ends meet when there 
is not enough to s'o round. 

Decatur and Bainbridge, whose written opinions are pre- 
served, held views greatly modified from those of Rodgers, 
or even distinctly opposed to them. " The plan which 
appears to me Ijest calculated for our little navy to annoy 
the trade of Great Britain," wrote Decatur,^ "-would be to 
send them out distant from our own coast, singly, or not 
more than two frigates in company, without specific instruc- 
tions ; relying upon the enterprise of their officers. Two 
frigates cruising together would not be so easily traced by 
an enemy as a greater number ; their movements would be 

1 Captains' Letters, Juue 3, 1812. Navy Department MSS. 

2 Ibid., Juue 8, 1812. 



318 THE WAR OF 1813 

infinitely more nipid; they would be sufficiently strong 
in most instances to attack a convoy, and the probability is 
they would not meet with a superior cruising force. If, 
however, they should meet a superior, and cannot avoid 
it, we would not have to regret the whole of our marine 
crushed at one blow." Bainbridge is yet more absolute. 
" I am anxious to see us all dispersed about various seas. 
If we are kept together in squadron, or lying in port, the 
whole are scarcely of more advantage tlian one ship. I 
wish all our public vessels here [Boston] were dispersed in 
various ports, for I apprehend it will draw speedily a 
numerous force of the enemy to blockade or attack." ^ At 
the moment of writing tliis, Rodgers' squadron was in 
Boston, having returned from a cruise, and the '' Constitu- 
tion " also, immediately after her engagement with the 
" Guerri5re." 

It will be observed that, in spirit even more than in 
letter, Rodgers' leading conception is that of co-operation, 
combined action. First, he would have a Department 
general plan, embracing in a comprehensive scheme the 
entire navy and the ocean at large, in the British seas, 
West Indies, and North Atlantic ; each contributing, by its 
particular action and impression, to forward tlie work of 
the others, and so of the whole. Secondly, he intimates, 
not obscurely, though cautiously, in each separate field the 
concerted action of several ships is better than their dis- 
connected efforts. Decatur and Bainbridge, on the con- 
trary, implicitly, and indeed explicitly, favor individual 
movement. They would reject even combination by the 
Department — " no specific instructions, rely upon the 
enterprise of the officers." Nor will they have a local 
supervision or control in any particular; two frigates at 
the most are to act together, singly even is preferable, 
and they shall roam the seas at will. 

1 Captains' Letters, Sept. 2, 1812. Navy Department MSS. 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 319 

There can be little doubt as to which scheme is sounder 
in general principle. All military experience concurs in 
the general rule of co-operative action ; and this means 
concentration, under the liberal definition before given — 
unity of purpose and subordination to a central control. 
General rules, however, must be intelligently applied to 
particular circumstances ; and it will be found by con- 
sidering the special circumstances of British commerce, 
under the war conditions of 1812, that Rodgers' plan was 
particularly suited to injure it. It is doubtless true that 
if merchant vessels were so dispersed over the globe, that 
rarely more than one would be visible at a time, one ship 
of war could take that one as well as a half-dozen could. 
But this was not the condition. British merchant ships 
were not permitted so to act. They were compelled to 
gather at certain centres, and thence, when enough had 
assembled, were despatched in large convoys, guarded by 
ships of war, in force proportioned to that disposable at 
the moment by the local admiral, and to the anticipated 
danger. Consequently, while isolated merchant ships were 
to be met, they were but the crumbs that fell from the 
table, except in the near vicinity of the British Islands 
themselves. 

Such were the conditions while Great Britain had been 
at war with France alone ; but the declaration of the 
United States led at once to increased stringency. All 
licenses to cross the Atlantic without convoy were at once 
revoked, and every colonial and naval commander lay 
under heavy responsibility to enforce the law of convoy. 
Insurance was forfeited by breach of its requirements ; 
and in case of parting convoj^, capture would at least 
hazard, if not invalidate, the policy. Under all this com- 
pulsion, concentrated merchant fleets and heavy guards 
became as far as possible the rule of action. With such 
conditions it was at once more difficult for a single ship 



320 THE WAR OF 1812 

of war to find, and when found to deal effectually with, a 
body of vessels which on the one hand was large, and yet 
occupied but a small space relatively to the great expanse 
of ocean over which the pursuer might roam fruitlessly, 
missing continually the one moving spot he sought. For 
such a purpose a well-handled squadron, scattering within 
signal-distance from each other, or to meet at a rendezvous, 
was more likely to find, and, having found, could by con- 
certed action best overcome the guard and destroy the 
fleet. 

On June 22, 1812, the Navy Department issued orders 
for Rodgers,! which are interesting as showing its ideas of 
operations. The two squadrons then assembled under him 
were to go to sea, and there separate. He himself, with the 
frigates "President,"' "Essex," and "John Adams," sloop 
" Hornet," and the small brig " Nautilus," was to go to the 
Capes of the Chesapeake, and thence cruise eastwardly, off 
and on. Decatur's two frigates, with the " Argus," would 
cruise southwardly from New York. It was expected that 
the two would meet from time to time ; and, should com- 
bined action be advisable, Rodgers had authority to unite 
them under his broad pendant for that purj)ose. The object 
of this movement was to protect the commerce of the 
countr}', which at this time was expected to be returning 
in great numbers from the Spanish peninsula ; whither had 
been hurried every available sliip, and every barrel of flour 
in store, as soon as the news of the approaching embargo 
of April 4 became public. " The great bulk of our return- 
ing commerce," wrote the secretary, " will make for the 
ports between the Chesapeake and our eastern extremities ; 
and, in the protection to be afforded, such ports claim 
particular attention." 

The obvious comment on this disposition is that pro- 
tection to the incoming ships would be most completely 

1 Navy Departmeut MSS. 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 321 

afforded, not by the local presence of either of these squad- 
rons, but by the absence of the enemy. This absence was 
best insured by beating him, if met; and in the then size 
of the British Halifax fleet it was possible that a detach- 
ment sent from it might be successfully engaged by the 
joint division, though not by either squadron singly. Tlie 
other adequate alternative was to force the enemy to keep 
concentrated, and so to cover as small a part as might be 
of the homeward path of the scattered American trade. 
This also was best effected by uniting our own ships. 
Without exaggerating the danger to the American squad- 
rons, needlessly exposed in detail by the Department's plan, 
the object in view would have been attained as surely, and 
at less risk, by keeping all the vessels together, even thougli 
they were retained between Boston Bay and the Capes of 
the Chesapeake for the local defence of commerce. In 
short, as was to be expected from the antecedents of the 
Government, the scheme was purely and narrowly defen- 
sive ; there was not in it a trace of any comprehension of 
the principle that offence is the surest defence. The open- 
inof words of its letter defined the full measure of its under- 
standing. " It has been judged expedient so to employ 
our public armed vessels, as to afford to our returning 
commerce all possible protection." It may be added, that 
to station on the very spot where the merchant vessels 
were flocking in return, divisions inferior to that whicli 
could be concentrated against them, was'very bad strategy ; 
drawing the enemy by a double motive to the place whence 
his absence was particularly desirable. 

The better way was to influence British naval action by 
a distinct offensive step ; by a movement of the combined 
divisions sufficiently obvious to inspire caution, but yet too 
vague to admit of precision of direction or definite pursuit. 
In accordance with the general ideas formulated in his 
letter, before quoted, liodgers had already fixed upon a 

VOL. I. — 21 



322 THE WAR OF 1812 

plan, which, if successful, would inflict a startling blow to 
British commerce and prestige, and at the same time would 
compel the enemy to concentrate, tlius diminishing his 
menace to American shipping. It was known to him that 
a large convoy had sailed from Jamaica for England about 
May 20, The invariable course of such bodies was first to 
the north-northeast, parallel in a general sense to the Gulf 
Stream and American coast, until tliey had cleared tlie 
northeast trades and the belt of light and variable winds 
above them. Upon approaching forty degrees north lati- 
tude, they met in full force tlie rude west winds, as the 
Spanish navigators styled them, and before them bore away 
to the English Channel. That a month after their starting: 
Rodgers should still have hoped to overtake them, gives a 
lively impression of the lumbering slowness of trade move- 
ment under convoy ; but he counted also upon the far 
swifter joint speed of his few and well-found ships. To 
the effective fulfilment of his double object, defensive and 
offensive, however, he required more ships than his own 
squadron, and he held his course dependent upon Decatur 
joining him.^ 

On June 21 Decatur did join, and later in the same day 
arrived a Department order of June 18 with the Declara- 
tion of War. Within an hour the division of five ships 
was under way for sea. In consequence of this instant 
movement Rodgers did not receive the subsequent order of 
the Department, June 22, the purport of which has been 
explained and discussed. Standing off southeasterly from 
Sandy Hook, at 3 A.M. of June 23 was spoken an American 
brig, which four days before had seen the convoy steering 
east in latitude 36 , longitude 67°, or about three liundred 
miles from where the squadron then was. Canvas was 
crowded in pursuit, but three hours later was sighted in the 
northeast a large sail heading toward the squadron. The 

1 Captains' Letters, J. Rodgers, Sept. 1, 1812. Navy Department MSS. 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 323 

course of all the vessels was changed for her ; but she, 
proving to be British, — the " Belvidera," rated 32, and 
smaller than any one of the American frigates, — speedily- 
turned and took flight. Pursuit was continued all that day 
and until half an hour before midnight, the " President " 
leading as the fastest ship ; but the British vessel, fighting 
for her life, and witli the friendly port of Halifax under her 
lee, could resort to measures impossible to one whose plan 
of distant cruising required complete equipment, and full 
stores of provisions and water. Boats and spare spars and 
anchors w^ere thrown overboard, and fourteen tons of drink- 
ing water pumped out. Thus lightened, after being within 
range of the " President's " guns for a couple of hours, the 
" Belvidera" drew gradually away, and succeeded in escap- 
ing, having received and inflicted considerable damage. In 
explanation of such a result between two antagonists of very 
unequal size, it must be remembered that a chasing ship of 
those days could not fire straight ahead ; while in turning 
her side to bring the guns to bear, as the " President " several 
times did, she lost ground. The chased ship, on the other 
hand, from the form of the stern, could use four guns with- 
out deviating from her course. 

After some little delay in repairing, the squadron re- 
sumed pursuit of the convoy. On June 29, and again on 
July 9, vessels were spoken which reported encountering 
it ; the latter the evening before. Traces of its course also 
were thought to be found in quantities of cocoanut shell 
and orange peel, passed on one occasion; but, though 
the chase was continued to within twenty hours' sail of 
the English Channel, the convoy itself w^as never seen. 
To this disappointing result atmospheric conditions very 
lai-gely contributed. From June 29, on the western edge 
of the Great Banks, until July 13, when the pursuit was 
abandoned, the weather was so thick that " at least six 
days out of seven " nothing was visible over five miles 



324 ^'^^^ ^^''^^^ OF 1812 

away, and for long periods the vessels could not even see 
one another at a distance of two hundred yards. The 
same surrounding lasted to the neigliborhood of Madeira, 
for \\'hich the course was next shaped. After passing 
that island on June 21 return was made toward the United 
States by way of the Azores, which were sighted, and 
thence again to the Banks of Newfoundland and Cape 
Sable, reaching Boston August 31, after an absence of 
seventy days. 

Although Rodgers's plan had completely failed in what 
may properly be called its purpose of offence, and he could 
report the capture of "only seven merchant vessels, and 
those not valuable," he congratulated himself with justice 
upon success on the defensive side.^ The full effect was 
produced, which he had anticipated from the mere fact of a 
strong American division being at large, but seen so near its 
own shores that nothing certain could be inferred as to its 
movements or intentions. The " Belvidera," having lost 
sight of it at midnight, could, upon her arrival in Halifax, 
give only the general information that it was at sea ; and 
Captain Byron, who commanded her, thought with reason 
that the " President's " action warranted the conclusion that 
the anticipated hostilities had been begun. He therefore 
seized and brought in two or three American merchantmen ; 
but the British admiral, Sawyer, thinking there might pos- 
sibly be some mistake, like that of the meeting between 
the "President" and "Little Belt" a year before, directed 
their release. 

A very few days later, definite intelligence of the decla- 
ration of war by the United States was received at Halifax. 
At that period, the American seas from the equator to T^ab- 
radorw^re for administrative purposes divided by the Brit- 
ish Admiralty into four commands : two in the West Indies, 
centring respectively at Jamaica and Barbados ; one at 

1 Letter of Sept. 1, 1812. Navy Departmeut MSS. 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 325 

Newfoundland ; while the fourth, with its two chief naval 
bases of Halifax and Bermuda, lay over against the United 
States, and embraced the Atlantic coast-line in its field of 
operations. Admiral Sawyer now promptly despatched a 
squadron, consisting of one small ship of the line and three 
frigates, the " Shannon," 38, " Belvidera," 36, and " iEolus," 
32, which sailed July 5. Four days later, off Nantucket, 
it was joined by the " Guerriere," 38, and July 14 arrived 
off Sandy Hook. There Captain Broke, of the " Shannon," 
who by seniority of rank commanded the whole force, " re- 
ceived the first intelligence of Rodgers' squadron having 
put to sea." ^ As an American division of some character 
had been known to be out since the " Belvidera " met it, 
and as Rodgers on this particular day was within two days' 
sail of the English Channel, the entire ignorance of the 
enemy as to his whereabouts could not be more emphati- 
cally stated. The components of the British force were 
such that no two of them could justifiably venture to en- 
counter his united command. Consequently, to remain 
together was imposed as a military necessity, and it so con- 
tinued for some weeks. In fact, the first separation, that 
of the " Guerrifere," though apparently necessary and safe, 
was followed immediately by a disaster. 

Rodgers was therefore justified in his claim concerning his 
cruise. " It is truly unpleasant to be obliged to make a com- 
munication thus barren of benefit to our country. The only 
consolation I, individually, feel on the occasion is derived 
from knowing that our being at sea obliged the enemy to con- 
centrate a considerable portion of his most active force, and 
thereby prevented his capturing an incalculable amount of 
American propert}^ tliat would otherwise have fallen a sac- 
rifice." " My calculations were," he wrote on another oc- 
casion, " even if I did not succeed in destroying the convoy, 
that leaving the coast as we did Avould tend to distract the 

1 James, Naval History (edition 1824), vol. v. p. 283. 



326 THE WAR OF 1812 

enemy, oblige him to concentrate a considerable portion of 
his active navy, and at the same time prevent his .single 
cruisers from lying before any of our j)rincipal ports, from 
their not knowing to which, or at what moment, we might 
return." ^ This was not only a perfectly sound military 
conception, gaining additional credit from the contrasted 
view^s of Decatur and Bainbridge, but it ^^■as applied suc- 
cessfully at the most critical moment of all wars, namely, 
w'hen commerce is flocking home for safety, and under con- 
ditions particularly hazardous to the United States, owing 
to the unusually large number of vessels then out. " We 
have been so completely occupied in looking out for Com- 
modore Rodgers' squadron," wrote an officer of the " Guer- 
rifere," " that we have taken very few prizes." ^ President 
Madison in his annual message ^ said : " Our trade, with 
little exception, has reached our ports, having been much 
favored in it by the course pursued by a squadron of our 
frigates under the command of Commodore Rodg^ers." 

Nor was it only tlie offensive action of tlie enemy 
against the United States' ports and commerce that was 
thus hampered. Unwonted defensive measures were forced 
upon him. Uncertainty as to Rodgers' position and in- 
tentions led Captain Broke, on July 29, to join a home- 
ward-bound Jamaica fleet, under convoy of the frigate 
" TJialia," some two or three hundred miles to the south- 
ward and eastward of Halifax, and to accompany it with 
his division live hundred miles on its voyage. Tlie place 
of this meeting shows that it was pre-arranged, and its 
distance from the American coast, live hundred miles away 
from New York, together with tlie length of the journey 
through which the additional guard was thought necessary, 
emphasize tlie effect of Rodgers' unknown situation upon 

^ Captains' Letters, Sept. 14, 1812. Navy nepartment MSS. 

2 Naval Cliroiiicle (Britisli), vol. xxviii. p. 426. 

3 Nov. 4, 1812. 




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EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 327 

the enemy's movements. The protection of their own 
trade carried this British division a thousand miles away 
from the coast it was to threaten. It is in such study 
of reciprocal action between enemies that the lessons of 
war are learned, and its principles established, in a manner 
to which the study of combats between single ships, how- 
ever brilliant, affords no equivalent. The convoy that 
Broke thus accompanied has been curiously confused with 
the one of Avhich Kodgers believed himself in pursuit ; ^ 
and the British naval historian James chuckles obviously 
over the blunder of the Yankee commodore, who returned 
to Boston " just six days after the ' Thalia,' having brought 
home her charge in safety, had anchored in the Downs." 
Rodgers may have been wholly misinformed as to there 
being any Jamaica convoy on the way when he started ; 
but as on July 29 he had passed Madeira on his way 
home, it is obvious that the convoy which Broke then 
joined south of Halifax could not be the one the American 
squadi'on beheved itself to be pursuing across the Atlantic 
a month earlier. 

Broke accompanied the merchant ships to the limits of 
the Hahfax station. Then, on August 6, receiving intelli- 
gence of Rodgers having been seen on their homeward 
path, he directed the ship of the line, "Africa," to go 
with them as far as 45° W., and for them thence to follow 
latitude 52° N., instead of the usual more southerly route.^ 
After completing this duty the "Africa" was to return to 
Halifax, whither the " Guerrifere," which needed repairs, 
was ordered at once. The remainder of the squadron re- 
turned off Xew York, where it Avas again reported on 
September 10. The movement of the convoy, and the 
" Guerriere's " need of refit, were linked events that 

1 Naval Chronicle, vol. xxviii. p. 159; James, vol. v. p. 274. 

2 Sir J. B. Warreu to Admiralty, Aug 24, 1812. Cauadiau Archives MSS. 
M. 389. 1, p. 147. 



328 I^HE WAR OF 1812 

brought about the first single-ship action of the war ; 
to account for which fully the antecedent movements 
of her opponent must also be traced. At the time 
Rodgers sailed, the United States frigate " Constitution," 
44, was lying at Annapolis, enlisting a crew. Fear- 
ing to be blockaded in Chesapeake Bay, a position almost 
hopeless, her captain, Hull, hurried to sea on July 12. 
July 17, the ship being then off Egg Harbor, New Jerse}-, 
some ten or fifteen miles from shore, bound to New York, 
Broke's vessels, which had then arrived from Halifax for 
the first time in the war, Avere sighted from the masthead, 
to the northward and inshore of the " Constitution,'" Cap- 
tain Hull at first believed that this might be the squadron 
of Rodgers, of whose actual movements he had no knowl- 
edge, waiting for him to join in order to carry out com- 
mands of the Department. Two hours later, another sail 
was discovered to the northeast, off shore. The perils of an 
isolated ship, in the presence of a superior force of possible 
enemies, imposed caution, so Hull steered warily toward 
the single unknown. Attempting to exchange signals, he 
soon found that he neither could understand nor be under- 
stood. To persist on his course might surround him with 
foes, and accordingly, about 11 P.isr., the ship was headed 
to the southeast and so continued durins^ the niofht. 

The next morning left no doubt as to the character of 
the strangers, among whom was the *' Guerrifere ; " and 
there ensued a cliase which, lasting from daylight of July 
18th to near noon of the 20th, has become liistorical in the 
United States Navy, from the attendant difficulties and the 
imminent peril of the favorite ship endangered. Much of 
the pursuit being in calm, and on soundings, resort was 
had to towing by boats, and to dragging the ship ahead by 
means of light anchors dropped on the bottom. In a con- 
test of this kind, the ability of a squadron to concentrate 
numbers on one or two ships, which can first approach and 




THE FORKCASTLE OF THE COySTITUTIOy DURING THE CHASE. 

Drawn by Henry Heiiierdahl. 



EARLY CRUISES AND ENGAGEMENTS 329 

cripple the enemy, thus hokling liim till their consorts 
come up, gives an evident advantage over the single op- 
ponent. On the other hand, the towing boats of the pur- 
suer, being toward the stern guns of the pursued, are the 
first objects on either side to come under fire, and are vul- 
nerable to a much greater degree than the ships themselves. 
Under such conditions, accurate appreciation of advantages, 
and unremitting use of small opportunities, are apt to 
prove decisive. It was by such diligent and skilful ex- 
ertion that the " Constitution " effected her escape from a 
position which for a time seemed desperate ; but it should 
not escape attention that thus early in the wai', before Great 
Britain had been able to re-enforce her American fleet, one 
of our frigates was unable to enter our principal seaport. 
" Finding the ship so far to the southward and eastward," 
reported Hull, " and the enemy's squadron stationed off 
New York, which would make it impossible to get in tliere, 
I determined to make for Boston, to receive your further 
orders." 

On July 28 he writes from Boston that there were as yet 
no British cruisers in the Bay, nor off the New England 
coast ; that great numbers of merchant vessels were daily 
arriving from Europe ; and that he was warning them off 
the southern ports, advising that they should enter Boston. 
He reasoned that the enemy would now disperse, and prob- 
ably send two frigates off the port. In this he under-esti- 
mated the deterrent effect of Rodgers' invisible command, 
but the apprehension hastened his own departure, and on 
August 2 he sailed again Avitli the first fair wind. Run- 
ning along the iNIaine coast to the Bay of Fundy, he thence 
went off Halifax ; and meeting nothing there, in a three or 
four days' stay, moved to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to in- 
tercept the trade of Canada and Nova Scotia. Here in the 
neighborhood of Cape Race some important captures were 
made, and on August 15 an American brig retaken, wliieh 



330 THE WAR OF 1812 

gave information that Broke's squadron was not far away. 
This was probably a fairly correct report, as its returning 
course should liave carried it near by a very few days before. 
Hull therefore determined to go to the southward, passing 
close to Bermuda, to cruise on the southern coast of the 
United States. In pursuance of this decision the " Consti- 
tution " had run some three hundred miles, when at 2 p.m. 
of August 19, being then nearly midway of the route over 
which Broke three weeks before had accompanied the con- 
voy, a sail was sighted to the eastward, standing west. 
This proved to be the " Guerriere," on her return to Hali- 
fax, whither she was moving very leisurely, having tra- 
versed only two hundred miles in twelve days. 

As the " Constitution," standing south-southwest for 
her destination, was crossing the " Guerriere's " bows, her 
course was changed, in order to learn the character of the 
stranger. By half-past three she was recognized to be a 
large frigate, under easy sail on the starboard tack ; which, 
the wind being northwesterly, gives her heading from west- 
southwest to southwest. The " Constitution " was to wind- 
ward. At 3.45 the " Guerriere," without changing her 
course, backed her maintopsail, the effect of which was to 
lessen her forward movement, leaving just way enough to 
keep command with her helm (G 1). To be thus nearly 
motionless assured the steadiest platform for aiming the guns, 
during the period most critical for the " Constitution," 
when, to get near, she must steer nearly head on, toward 
her opponent. The disadvantage of this approach is that 
the enemy's shot, if they hit, pass from end to end of the 
ship, a distance, in those days, nearly fourfold that of from 
side to side ; and besides, the line from bow to stern was 
that on which the guns and the men who work them 
were ranged. The risks of grave injury were therefore 
greatly increased by exposure to this, which by soldiers is 
called enfilading, but at sea a raking fire; and to avoid 



a;^^feiassi!v^jiBf3v<T*wi»fflKar*:xi-'N»^*^i(. 




CAPTAIX ISAAC HULL. 

From the engrii>-ing by D. Edwin after the painting by Gilbert Stvnrt. 



THE ''CONSTITUTION'' AND '' GUEIUIIERE" 331 

such mischance was one of the principal concerns of a 
captain in a naval duel. 

Seeing his enemy thus challenge him to come on, Hull, 
who had. been carrying sail in order to close, now reduced 
his canvas to topsails, and put two reefs into them, bring- 
ing by the wind for that object (CI). All other usual 
preparations were made at the same time ; the " Constitu- 
tion " during them lying side to wind, out of gunshot, 
practically motionless, like her antagonist. When all was 
ready, the ship kept away again, heading toward the star- 
board quarter of the British vessel ; that is, she was on her 
right-hand side, steering toward her stern (C 2). As this, 
if continued, would permit her to pass close under the 
stern, and rake. Captain Dacres waited until he thought 
her within gunshot, when lie fired the guns on the right- 
hand side of the vessel — the starboard broadside — and 
immediately wore ship ; that is, turned the " Guerri^re " 
round, making a half circle, and bringing her otlier side 
toward the " Constitution," to fire the other, or port, battery 
(G 2). It will be seen that, as both ships were moving in 
the same general direction, away from the wind, the Amer- 
ican coming straight on, while the British retired by a suc- 
cession of semicircles, each time this manoeuvre was repeated 
the ships would be nearer together. This was what both 
captains purposed, but neither proposed to be raked in the 
operation. Hence, although the " Constitution " did not 
wear, she " yawed " several times ; that is, turned her head 
from side to side, so that a shot striking would not have 
full raking effect, but angling across the decks would do 
proportionately less damage. Such methods were common 
to all actions between single ships. 

These proceedings had lasted about three quarters of an 
hour, when Dacres, considering he now could safely afford 
to let his enemy close, settled his ship on a course nearly 
before the wind, having it a little on her left side (G 3). 



332 THE WAR OF 1812 

The American frigate was thus behind her, receiving the 
shot of her stern guns, to which the bow fire of those days 
could make httle effective reply. To relieve this disadvan- 
tage, by shortening its duration, a big additional sail — the 
main topgallantsail — was set upon the " Constitution," 
which, gathering fresh speed, drew up on the left-liand side 
of the " Guerriere," within pistol-shot, at 6 p.m., when the 
battle proper fairly began (3). For the moment manoeuv- 
ring ceased, and a square set-to at the guns followed, the 
ships running side by side. In twenty minutes the " Guer- 
rifere's" mizzen-mast^ was shot away, falling overboard on the 
starboard side ; while at nearly the same moment, so Hull 
reported, her main-yard went in the slings.^ This double 
accident reduced her speed ; but in addition the mast with 
all its hamper, dragging in the water on one side, both slowed 
the vessel and acted as a rudder to turn her head to starboard, 
— from the "Constitution." The sail-power of the latter 
being unimpaired would have quickly carried her so far ahead 
that her guns would no longer bear, if she continued the 
same course. Hull, therefore, as soon as he saw the spars 
of his antagonist go overboard, put the helm to port, in 
order to " oblige him to do the same, or suffer himself to 
be raked by our getting across his bows." ^ The fall of 
the " Guerriere 's " mast effected what was desired by Hull, 
who continues : " On our lielm being put to port tlie ship 
came to, and gave us an opportunity of pouring in upon 
liis larboard bow several broadsides." The disabled state 
of the r>ritisli frigate, and tlie promptness of the American 
captain, thus enabled the latter to take a raking position 
upon the port (larboard) bow of the enemy ; that is, ahead, 
but on the left side (4). 

1 Of tlie three masts of a " sliip," the mizzeu-mast is tlie one nearest the 
stern. 

2 The middle, -wliere the yard is luiiicj. 

8 Hull's report, Aug. 28, 1812. Captains' Letters, Navv Department 
xMSS. 





^#c 


/ 
/ 


5 
o 




< 

1 


i 

1 


G /■ 


1 \ 




V \ 


1 1 

PLAN OF THE ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND 


GUERRIERE 



THE ^' CONSTITUTION" AND '' G UERRIERE " 333 

The " Constitution " ranged on very slowly across the 
" Guerriere's " bows, from left to right ; her sails shaking in 
the wind, because the yai-ds could not be braced, the braces 
having been shot a\\ay. From this commanding position 
she gave two raking broadsides, to which her opponent 
could reply only feebly from a few forward guns ; then, the 
vessels being close together, and the British forging slowly 
ahead, threatening to cross the American's stern, the helm 
of the latter was put up. As the " Constitution " turned 
away, the bowsprit of the " Guerriere " lunged over her quar- 
ter-deck, and became entangled by her port mizzen-rigging ; 
the result being that the two fell into the same line, the 
" Guerriere " astern and fastened to her antagonist as de- 
scribed. (5) In her crippled condition for manoeuvring, it 
was possible that tlie Britisli captain might seek to retrieve 
the fortunes of the day by boarding, for whicli the present 
situation seemed to offer some opportunity ; and from the 
reports of the respective officers it is clear that the same 
thought occurred to both parties, prompting in each the 
movement to repel boarders rather than to board. A num- 
ber of men clustered on either side at the point of contact, 
and here, by musketry fire, occurred some of the severest 
losses. Tlie first lieutenant and sailing-master of the " Con- 
stitution " fell wounded, and the senior officer of marines 
dead, sliot through the head. All these were specially con- 
cerned where boarding was at issue. This period was brief ; 
for at 6.30 the fore and main-masts of the Britisli frigate 
gave way togetlier, carrying with them all the liead booms, 
and she lay a helpless hulk in the trough of a heavy sea, 
rolling the muzzles of her guns under. A sturdy attempt 
to get her under control with the spritsail ^ was made ; 
but this resource, a bare possibility to a dismasted ship in 

1 The spritsail was set on a yard whicli in ships of that day crossed the 
bowsprit at its outer end, much as other yards crossed the three upright 
lower masts. Under some circumstances ships would forge slowly ahead un- 
der its impulse. It was a survival from days which knew not jibs. 



334 THE WAR OF 1812 

a fleet action, with friends around, was only the assertion 
of a sound never-give-up tradition, against hopeless odds, in 
a naval duel Avith a full-sparred antagonist. The " Consti- 
tution *' hauled off for half an hour to repair damages, and 
upon returning received the " Guerriere's " surrender. It 
was then dark, and tlie niglit was })assed in transferring the 
prisoners. When day broke, the prize was found so shat- 
tered that it would be impossible to bring her into port. 
She was consequently set on fire at 3 p.m., and soon after 
blew up. 

In this fight the American frigate was much superior in 
force to her antagonist. The customary, and upon the 
whole justest, mode of estimating relative power, was by 
aggregate weight of shot discharged in one broadside ; and 
wlien, as in this case, the range is so close that every gun 
comes into play, it is perhaps a useless refinement to insist 
on qualifying considerations. The broadside of the " Con- 
stitution " weighed 736 pounds, that of the " Guerrifere " 570. 
The difference tlierefore in favor of the American vessel 
^^•as thirty per cent, and the disparity in numbers of the 
crews was even greater. It is not possible, therefore, to 
insist upon any singular credit, in the mere fact that under 
such odds victory falls to the heavier vessel. What can 
be said, after a careful comparison of the several reports, is 
that the American ship was fought warily and boldly, that 
her gunnery was excellent, that the instant advantage 
taken of the enemy's mizzen-mast falling showed high sea- 
manlike qualities, both in promptness and accuracy of 
execution ; in short, that, considering the capacity of the 
American captain as evidenced by his action, and the odds 
in his favor, nothing could be more misplaced than Captain 
Dacres' vaunt before the Court : " I am so well aware that 
the success of my opponent was owing to fortune, that it 
is my earnest wish to be once more opposed to the ' Consti- 
tution,' with the same officers and crew under my command,. 



THE '^ CONSTITUTION'' AND '' GUERRIERE " 335 

in a frigate of similar force to the ' Guerri^re.' " ^ In view 
of the diiference of broadside weight, this amounts to 
saying that the capacity and courage of tlie captain and 
ship's company of the " Guerrifere," being over tliirty per 
cent greater than those of the " Constitution," would more 
than compensate for the latter's bare thirty per cent supe- 
riority of force. It may safely be said that one will look 
in vain through the accounts of the transaction for any 
ground for such assumption. A ready acquiescence in this 
opinion was elicited, indeed, from two witnesses, the master 
and a master's mate, based upon a supposed superiority of 
fire, which the latter estimated to be in point of rapidity as 
four broadsides to every three of the " Constitution." ^ 
But rapidity is not the only element of superiority; and 
Dacres' satisfaction on this score, repeatedly expressed, 
might have been tempered Ijy one of the facts he alleged in 
defence of his surrender — that "on the larboard side of 
the ' Guerriere ' there were about thirty shot which had 
taken effect about live sheets of copper down," — far below 
the water-line. 

Captain Hull with the " Constitution " reached Boston 
August 30, just four weeks after his departure ; and the 
following day Commodore Rodgers with his squadron 
entered the harbor. It was a meeting between disappoint- 
ment and exultation ; for so profound was the impression 
prevailing in the United States, and not least in New 
England, concerning the irreversible superiority of Great 
Britain on the sea, that no word less strong than " exulta- 
tion " can do justice to the feeling aroused by Hull's vic- 
tory. Sight was lost of the disparity of force, and the 
pride of the country fixed, not upon those points which 
the attentive seaman can recognize as giving warrant for 

1 Dacres' Defence before the Court Martial. Naval Chrouicle, vol. xxviii. 
p. 422. 

2 " Guerriere " Court Martial. MS. Briti.sh Records Office. 



336 ^'-^^^^ ^I'-47e OF 1812 

confidence, but upon the supposed demonstration of supe- 
riority in equal combat. 

Consolation was needed; for since Kodgers' sailing 
much had occurred to dishearten and little to encouraofe. 
The nation had cherished few expectations from its tiny 
navy ; but concerning its arms on land the advocates of war 
liad entertained the unreasoning confidence of those who 
expect to reap without taking the trouble to sow. In tlie 
first year of President Jefferson's administration, 1801, the 
" peace establishment " of the regular army, in pursuance 
of the policy of the President and party in power, was re- 
duced to three thousand men. In 1808, under the excitement 
of the outrage upon the " Chesapeake " and of the Orders 
in Council, an " additional military force " was authorized, 
raising the total to Iqw thousand. The latter measure 
seems for some time to Jiave been considered temporary 
in character; for in a return to Congress in January, 1810, 
the numbers actually in service are reported separately, as 
2,765 and 4,189; total, 6,954, exclusive of staff ofiicers. 

General Scott, who was one of the captains appointed 
under the Act of 1808, has recorded that the condition of 
both soldiers and officers was in great part most inefficient.^ 
Speaking of the later commissions, he said, " Such were 
the results of Mr. Jefferson's low estimate of, or rather 
contempt for, the military character, the consequence of 
the old hostility between him and the principal officers who 
achieved our independence." ^ In January, 1812, when war 
had in effect been determined upon in the party councils, a 
bill was passed raising tlie army to thirty-five thousand ; 
but in the economical and social condition of the period the 
service Avas under a popular disfavor, to which the attitude 
of recent administrations doubtless contributed greatly, and 
recruiting went on very slowly. There was substantially 

1 Memoirs of Gen. Wiufield Scott, vol. i p. 31. 
- Ibid., p. 35. 



HULL'S OPERATIONS 337 

no military ti'adition in tlie country. Tliirty years of peace 
had seen the disappearance of the othcers whom the War 
of Independence liad left in their prime ; and the Govern- 
ment fell into that most facile of mistakes, the choice of 
old men, because when youths tliey had worn an epaulette, 
without regarding the experience they had had under it, or 
since it was laid aside. 

Among the men thus selected w^ere Henry Dearborn, for 
senior major general, to command the northern division of 
the country, from Niagara to Boston Bay and New York ; 
and William Hull, a brigadier, for the Northwestern fron- 
tier, centring round Detroit. The latter, who was uncle to 
Captain Hull of the " Constitution," seems to have been 
chosen because already civil (lovernor of ^Michigan Terri- 
tory. President Madison thus reversed the practice of 
Great Britain, which commonly was to choose a military 
man for civil governor of exposed provinces. Hull ac- 
cepted with reluctance, and under pressure. He set out 
for his new duties, expecting that he would receive in his 
distant and perilous charge that measure of support which 
results from actiA'e operations at some other point of the 
enemy's line, presumably at Niagara. In this he was dis- 
appointed. Dearborn was now vsixtj'-one, Hull fifty-nine. 
Both had served with credit during the War of Independ- 
ence, but in subordinate positions ; and Dearborn had been 
Secretary of War throughout Jefferson's two terms. 

Opposed to these was the Lieutenant Governor of Upper 
Canada, Isaac Brock, a major-general in the British arm.y. 
A soldier from boyhood, he had commanded a regiment in 
active campaign at twenty-eight. He was now forty-two, 
and for the last ten years had served in North America ; 
first with his regiment, and later as a general officer in 
connnand of the troops. In October, 1811, he was ap- 
pointed to the civil government of the province. He was 
thoroughly familiar with the political and military condi- 

VOL. I. — 22 



338 THE WAR OF 1S12 

tions surrounding him, and his mind had long l)een actively 
eno-ao-ed in considering probable contingencies, in case war, 
threatening since 1807, should become actual. In formu- 
lated purpose and resolve, he was perfectly prepared for im- 
mediate action, as is shown by his letters, foreshadowing his 
course, to his superior. Sir George Prevost, Governor (ien- 
eral of Canada. He predicted that the pressure of the In- 
dians upon the western frontier of the United States would 
compel that country to keep there a considerable force, the 
presence of which would naturally tend to more than mere 
defensive measures. With the numerical inferiority of tlie 
British, the co-operation of the Indians was essential. To 
preserve Upper Canada, therefore, jNIichilimackinac and 
Detroit must be reduced. Otherwise the savages could 
not be convinced that Great Britain would not sacrifice 
them at a peace, as they believed her to have done in 1794, 
by Jay's Treaty. In this he agreed with Hull, who faced 
the situation far more efficiently than his superiors, and at 
the same moment was writing officially, " The British can- 
not hold Upper Canada without the assistance of the In- 
dians, and that they cannot obtain if we have an adequate 
force at Detroit." ^ Brock deemed it vital that Amherst- 
buro-, nearly opposite Detroit, should be held in force ; both 
to resist the first hostile attack, and as a base whence to 
proceed to offensive operations. He apprehended, and 
correctly, as the event proved, that Niagara would be 
chosen b}^ the Americans as the line for their main body to 
penetrate with a view to conquest. This was his defensive 
frontier ; the western, the offensive wing of his campaign. 
These leading ideas dictated his preparations, imperfect 
from paucity of means, but sufficient to meet the limping, 
flaccid measures of the United States authorities. 

To this well-considered view the War Department of 

1 Hull to the War Department, March G, 1812. Eeport of Hull's Trial, 
taken by Lieut. Col. Forbes, 42d U. S. lufantry. Hull's Defence, p. 31. 



HULUS OPERATIONS 339 

the United States opposed no ordered plan of any kind, 
no mind prepared with even the common precautions of 
everj^-day life. This unreadiness, plainly manifested by 
its actions, was the more culpable because the unfortunate 
Hull, in his letter of March 6, 1812, just quoted, a month 
before his unwilling acceptance of his general's commis- 
sion, had laid clearly before it the leading features of the 
military and political situation, recognized by him during 
his four years of ofhce as Governor of the Territory. In 
this cogent paper, amid numerous illuminative details, he 
laid unmistakable emphasis on the decisive influence of 
Detroit upon the whole Northwest, especially in determin- 
ing the attitude of the Indians. He dwelt also upon the 
critical weakness of the communications on which the 
tenure of it depended, and upon the necessity of naval 
superiority to secure them. This expression of his opinion 
was in the hands of the Government over three months be- 
fore the declaration of war. As early as January-, however, 
Secretary Eustis had been warned by Armstrong, who 
subsequently succeeded him in the War Department, that 
Detroit, otherwise advantageous in position, " would be 
positively bad, unless your naval means have an ascend- 
ency on Lake Erie." ^ 

Unfortunately for himself and for the country, Hull, 
upon visiting the capital in the spring, did not adhere 
firmly to his views as to the necessity for a lake navy. 
After the capitulation. President Madison wrote to his 
friend, John Nicholas, " The failure of our calculations with 
respect to the expedition under Hull needs no comment. 
The worst of it was that we were misled by a reliance, 
authorized by himself, on its [the expedition] securing to 
us the command of the lakes." ^ General Peter B. Porter, 

1 Armstrong's Notices of the War of 1812, vol. i. p. 237. 

2 The Writings of Madison (ed. 1865), vol. ii. p. 563. See also his letter 
to Dearborn, Oct. 7, 1812. Ibid., p. 547. 



340 ^^HE WAR OF 1812 

of the New York militia, a member also of the House of 
Representatives, who served well on the Miagara frontier, 
and was in no wise implicated by 1 lull's surrender, tes- 
tified before the Court Martial, " I was twice at the Presi- 
dent's with General Hull, when the subject of a navy was 
talked over. At first it was agreed to have one; but 
afterwards it was agreed to abandon it, doubtless as in- 
expedient." ^ The indications from Hull's earlier corre- 
spondence are that for the time he was influenced by the 
war spirit, and developed a hopefulness of achievement 
which affected his former and better judgment. 

On May 25, three weeks before the declaration of war, 
Hull took command of the militia assembled at Dayton, 
Ohio. On June 10, he was at Urbana, where a regiment 
of regular infantry joined. June 30, he reached the 
Maumee River, and thence reported that his force was 
over two thousand, I'ank and file.^ He had not yet re- 
ceived official intelligence of war having been actually 
declared, but all indications, including his own mission 
itself, pointed to it as imminent. Nevertheless, he here 
loaded a schooner with military stores, and sent her down 
the river for Detroit, knowing that, twenty miles be- 
fore reaching there, she must pass near the British Fort 
]\hilden, on the Detroit River covering Amherstburg ; and 
this while the British had local naval superiority. In 
taking this risk, the very imprudence of Avhieh testifies 
the importance of water transportation to Detroit, Hull 
directed his aids to forward his baggage by the same con- 
veyance ; and with it, contrary to his intention, were de- 
spatched also his official papers. The vessel, being promptly 
seized by the boats of the British armed brig "Hunter," 
was taken into Maiden, whence Colonel St. George, com- 
manding the district, sent the ca[)tured correspondence 

1 Hull's Trial, p. 127. Porter was a witness for the dcfeuce. 
'- Hull's Trial, Appendix, p. 4. 



HULL'S OPERATIONS 34I 

to Brock. "Till I received these letters," remarked the 
latter, '' I had 110 idea General Hull was advancing with 
so large a force." ^ 

When Brock thus wrote, July 20, he was at Fort George, 
on the shore of Ontario, near Niagara River, watching 
the frontier where he expected the main attack. He had 
already struck his first blow. Immediately upon being 
assured of the declaration of Avar, on June 28, he had de- 
spatched a letter to St. Joseph's, directing all preparations 
to be made for proceeding against iNIackinac ; the final de- 
termination as to offensive or defensive action being very 
properly left to the officer there in command. The latter, 
thus aware of his superior's wishes, started July 16, with 
some six hundred men, — of whom four hundred were In- 
dians, — under convoy of the armed brig "Caledonia," 
belonging to tlie Northwestern Fur Company. The next 
day he appeared before the American post, where the ex- 
istence of war was yet unknown. The garrison numbered 
fifty-seven, including three officers ; being about one third 
the force reported necessary for the peace establishment 
by Mr. Jefferson's Secretary of War, in 1801. The place 
was immediately surrendered. Under all the conditions 
stated there is an entertaining ingenuousness in the refer- 
ence made to this disaster by President Madison: "We 
have but just learned that the important post of Michili- 
mackinac has fallen into the hands of the enemy, but from 
what cause remains to be known." ^ 

Brock received this news at Toronto, July 29 ; but not 
till August 3 did it reach Hull, by the arrival of the 
paroled prisoners. He was then on the Canada side, 
at Sandwich, opposite Detroit ; having crossed with from 
fourteen to sixteen hundred men on July 12. This step 
was taken on the strength of a discretionary order from 

1 Life of Brock, p. 192. 

- Writiugs of James Madisou (Lippincott, 1865), vol. ii. p. 543. 



342 THE WAR OF 1812 

the Secretary of War, that if " the force under your com- 
mand be equal to the enterprise, consistent witli the safety 
of your own post, you will take possession of Maiden, and 
extend your conquests as circumstances may justify." It 
must be added, however, in justice to the Administration, 
that the same letter, received July 9, three days before 
the crossing, contained the warning, " It is also proper to 
inform you that an adequate force cannot soon be relied 
on for the reduction of the enemy's posts below you," ^ 
This bears on the question of Hull's expectation of sup- 
port by diversion on the Niagara frontier, and shows that 
he had fair notice on that score. That over-confidence 
still possessed him seems apparent from a letter to the 
secretary dated July 7, in which he said, " In your letter 
of June 18, you direct me to adopt measures for the se- 
curity of the country, and to await furtlier orders. 1 regret 
that I have not larger latitude."^ Now he received it, 
and his invasion of Canada was the result. It is vain to 
deny his hberty of action, under such instructions, but 
it is equally vain to deny the responsibility of a superior 
who thus authorizes action, and not obscurely intimates 
a wish, under general military conditions perfectly well 
known, such as existed with reference to Hull's communi- 
cations. Hull's attempt to justify his movement on the 
ground of pressure from subordinates, moral effect upon 
his troops, is admissible only if his decision were consist- 
ently followed by the one course that gave a chance of 
success. As a military enterprise the attempt was hope- 
less, unless by a rapid advance upon ^Maiden he could carry 
the works by instant storm. In that event tlie enemy's 
army and navy, losing their local base of operations, would 
have to seek one new and distant, one hundred and fifty 

1 Eustis to Hull, June 24, 1812. From MS. copy in the Kecords of 
the War Department. This letter was acknowledged by Hull, July 9. 
- Hull's Trial, Appendix, p. 9. 



HULUS OPERATIONS 343 

miles to the eastward, at Long Point ; whence attempts 
against the American positions could be only by water, with 
transportation inadequate to carrying large bodies of men. 
The American general thus might feel secure against at- 
tacks on his communications with Ohio, the critical condi- 
tion of which constituted the great danger of the situation, 
whether at Detroit or Sandwich. Hull himself, ten days 
after crossing, wrote, " It is in the power of this army 
to take Maiden by storm, but it would be attended, in 
my opinion, with too great a sacrifice under the present 
circumstances." ^ 

Instead of prompt action, two days were allowed to pass. 
Then, July 14, a council of war decided that immediate 
attack was inexpedient, and delay advisable. This con- 
clusion, if correct, condemned the invasion, and should 
have been reached before it was attempted. The military 
situation was this : Hull's line of supplies and re-enforce- 
ments was reasonably secure from hostile interference 
between southern Ohio and the Maumee; at which river 
proper fortification would permit the establishment of 
an advanced depot. Thence to Detroit was seventy-two 
miles, through much of which the road passed near the 
lake shore. It was consequently liable to attack from the 
water, so long as that was controlled by the enemy ; while 
by its greater distance from the centre of American popu- 
lation in the West, it was also more exposed to Indian 
hostilities than the portion behind the Maumee. Under 
these circumstances, Detroit itself was in danger of an 
interruption of supplies and re-enforcements, amounting 
possibly to isolation. It was open to the enemy to land in 
its rear, secure of his own communications by water, and 
with a fair chance, in case of failure, to retire by the way 
he came ; for retreat could be made safely in very small 
vessels or boats, so long as jNIalden was held in force. 

1 Hull to Eustis, July 22, 1812. Hull's Trial, Appendix, p. 10. 



344 THE WAR OF 1812 

The reduction of Maiden niiglit therefore secure Detroit, 
by depriving the enemy of a base suitable for using his 
lake power against its communications. Unless this was 
accomplished, any advance beyond Detroit with the force 
then at hand merely weakened that place, by just the 
amount of men and means expended, and was increasingly 
hazardous when it entailed crossing water. A sudden 
blow may snatch safety under such conditions ; but to 
attempt the slow and graduated movements of a siege, 
W'ith uncertain communications supporting it, is to coui't 
disaster. The holding of Detroit being imperative, efforts 
external to it should Jiave been chiefly exerted on its rear, 
and upon its front only to prevent the easy passage of 
the enemy. In short, when Detroit was reached, barring 
the chance of a coup de main upon Maiden, Hull's posi- 
tion needed to be made more solid, not more extensive. 
As it was, the army remained at Sandwich, making abor- 
tive movements toward the river Canard, Avhich covered 
the approach to Maiden, and pushing small foraging par- 
ties up the valley of the Thames. The greatest industry 
was used, Hull reported, in making preparations to be- 
siege, but it was not till August 7, nearly four weeks after 
crossing, that the siege guns were ready; and then the 
artillery officers reported that it would be extremely diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to take them to Maiden by land, 
and by water still more so, because the ship of war " Queen 
Charlotte," carrying eighteen 24-pounders, lay off the 
mouth of the Canard, commanding the stream. 

The first impression produced by the advance into 
Canada had been propitious to Hull. He himself in his 
defence admitted that the enemy's force had diminished, 
great part of their militia had left them, and many of tlieir 
Indians.^ This information of the American camp corre- 
sponded with the facts. Lieut. Colonel St. George, com- 

1 Hull's Trial, Defeace, p. 45. 



IlUirS OPERATIONS 345 

raanding Fort Maiden, reported the demoralized condition 
of his militia. Three days after Hull crossed he had left 
but four hundred and seventy-one, in such a state as to be 
absolutely inefficient.^ Colonel Procter, who soon after- 
wards relieved him, could on July 18 muster only two hun- 
dred and seventy Indians by the utmost exertion, and by 
the 26th these had rather decreased.^ Professing to see 
no immediate danger, he still asked for five hundred more 
regulars. At no time before Hull recrossed did he have 
two hundred and fifty .^ Under Hull's delay these favor- 
able conditions disappeared. British re-enforcements, small 
but veteran, arrived ; the local militia recovered; and the 
Indians, with the facile change fulness of savages, passed 
from an outwardly friendly bearing over to what began to 
seem the winning side. Colonel Procter then initiated the 
policy of threatening Hull's communications from the lake 
side. A body of Indians sent across by him on August 4 
defeated an American detachment marching to protect a 
convoy from tlie Maumee. This incident, coming upon 
accumulating adverse indications, and coinciding with the 
bad news received from Mackinac, aroused Hull to the 
essential danger of his situation. August 8 he recrossed 
to Detroit. August 9 another vigorous eifort was made by 
the enemy to destroy a detachment sent out to establish 
communications with the rear. Although the British were 
defeated, the Americans were unable to proceed, and re- 
turned to the town without supplies. In the first of these 
affairs some more of Hull's correspondence was captured, 
which revealed his apprehensions, and the general moral 
condition of his command, to an opponent capable of appre- 
ciating their military significance. 

Brock had remained near Niagara, detained partly by the 

1 Canadian Archives MSS. C. 676, p. 177. 2 ibjd.^ p. 242. 

3 Hull's Trial. Evidence of Lieutenant Gooding, p. 101, and of Sergeant 
Forbush, p. 147 (prisoners in Maiden). 



34(3 THE M'AR OF 1812 

political necessity of meeting the provincial legislature, 
partly to watch over what he considered the more exposed 
portion of his military charge ; for a disaster to it, being 
nearer the source of British power, would have upon the 
fortunes of the West an effect even more vital than a reverse 
there would exert upon the East. Being soon satisfied that 
the preparations of the United States threatened no im- 
mediate action, and finding that Hull's troops were forag- 
ing to a considerable distance east of Sandwich, along the 
Thames, he had decided to send against them a small body 
of local ti'oops with a number of Indians, while he himself 
gathered some militia and went direct by water to Maiden. 
To his dismay, the Indians declined to assist, alleging their 
intention to remain neutral ; upon whicli tlie militia also 
refused, saying they were afraid to leave their homes un- 
guarded, till it was certain which side the savages would 
take. On July 25 Brock wrote that his plans were thus 
ruined ; but July 29 it became known that Mackinac had 
faUen, and on that day the militia about York [Toronto] , 
where he then was, volunteered for service in any part of 
the province. August 8 he embarked with three hundred 
of them, and a few regulars, at Long Point, on the nortli 
shore of Lake Erie; whence he coasted to Maiden, arriving 
on the loth. 

Meanwhile batteries had been erected opposite Detroit, 
which opened on the evening of August 15, the fort reply- 
ing ; but slight harm was done on either side. Next day 
Brock crossed the greater part of his force, landing three 
miles below Detroit. His little column of assault consisted 
of 330 regulars, 400 militia, and 600 Indians, the latter in 
the woods covering the left flank.^ The effective Americans 
present were by that morning's report 1,060;^ while their 
field artillery, additional to tliat mounted in the works, was 

1 Life of Brock, p. 250. 

'- Letter of Colonel Cass to U. S. Secretary of War, Sept. 10, 1812. Hull's 
Trial, Appendix, ]>. 27. 



HULUS SURRENDER 347 

mucli superior to that of the enemy, was advantageously 
posted, and loaded with grape. Moreover, they had the 
fort, on which to retire. 

Brock's movements were audacious. Some said nothing 
could be more desperate ; " but I answer, that the state of 
Upper Canada admitted of nothing but desperate reme- 
dies." 1 The British general had served under Nelson 
at Copenhagen, and quoted him here. He knew also, 
through the captured correspondence, that his opponent 
was a prey to a desperation very different in temper from his 
own, and had lost the confidence of his men. He had hoped, 
by the threatening position assumed between the town and 
its home base, to force Hull to come out and attack ; but 
learning now that the garrison was weakened by a detach- 
ment of three hundred and fifty, despatched two days be- 
fore under Colonel ]\lcArthur to open intercourse with the 
Maumee by a circuitous road, avoiding the lake shore, he 
decided to assault at once. When the British column had 
approached within a mile, Hull witlidrew within the works 
all his force, including the artiller}^, and innnediately after- 
ward capitulated. The detachment under McArthur, with 
another from the state of Ohio on its way to join the 
army, were embraced in the terms ; Brock estimating the 
whole number surrendered at not less than twenty-five 
hundred. A more important capture, under the conditions, 
was an American brig, the " Adams," not yet armed, but 
capable of use as a ship of Avar, for which purpose she had 
already been transferred from the War Department to the 
Navy. 

In his defence before the Court Martial, which in INIarch, 
1814, tried him for his conduct of the campaign, Hull ad- 
dressed himself to three particulars, which he considered 
to be the principal features in the voluminous charges and 
specifications drawn against him. Tliese were, " the delay 

1 Life of Brock, p. 267. 



348 THE WAR OF 1812 

at Sandwich, the retreat from Canada, and the surrender 
at Detroit.'' ^ Concerning tlie.se, as a matter of military 
criticism, it may be said with much certainty that if condi- 
tions imposed the delay at Sandwich, they condemned the 
advance to it, and would have warranted an earlier retreat. 
The capitulation he justified on the ground that resistance 
could not change the result, though it might protract the 
issue. Because ultimate surrender could not be averted, 
he characterized life lost in postponing it as blood shed 
uselessly. Tlie conclusion does not follow from the prem- 
ise ; nor could any military code accept the maxim that 
a position is to be yielded as soon as it appears that it can- 
not be held indefinitely. Delay, so long as sustained, not 
only keeps open the chapter of accidents for the particular 
post, but supports related operations throughout the re- 
mainder of the field of war. Tenacious endurance, if it 
effected no more, would at least have held Brock away 
from Niagara, whither he hastened within a week after the 
capitulation, taking with him a force Avhich now could be 
well spared from the westward. No one military charge 
can be considered as disconnected ; therefore no com- 
mander has a right to abandon defence while it is possible 
to maintain it, unless he also knows that it cannot affect 
results elsewhere ; and this practically can never be certain. 
The burden of anxieties, of dangers and difficulties, actual 
and possible, weighing upon Brock, Avere full as great as 
those upon Hull, for on his shoulders rested both Niagara 
and iSIalden. His own resolution and promptitude tri- 
umphed because of the combined inefficiency of Hull and 
Dearborn. He scarcely could have avoided disaster at one 
end or the other of the line, had either opponent been 
thoroughly competent. 

There was yet another reason which weighed forcibly 
with Hull, and probably put all purely military coiisidera- 

i null's Trial. Defence, p. 20. 



HULL'S SURRENDER 349 

tions out of court. This was the dread of Indian outraare 
and massacre. The general trend of the testimony, and 
Hull's own defence, go to show a mind oAerpowered by tlie 
agony of this imagination. After receiving word of the 
desertion of two companies, he said, " I now became impa- 
tient to put the place under the protection of the British ; 
I knew that there were thousands of savages around us."' 
Tliese thousands were not at hand. Not till after Sep- 
tember 1 did as many as a hundred arrive from the north 
— from Mackinac.^ In short, unless what Cass styled the 
philanthropic reason can be accepted, — and in the opinion 
of the present writer it cannot, — Hull wrote the condemna- 
tion of his action in his own defence. " I shall now state 
what force the enemy brought, or might bring, against me. 
I say, gentlemen, might bring, because it was that consider- 
ation which induced the surrender, and not the force which 
was actually landed on the American shore on the morning 
of the 16th. It is possible I might have met and repelled 
that force ; and if I had no further to look than the event 
of a contest at that time, I should have trusted to the 
issue of a battle. . . . The force brought against me I am 
very confident was not less than one thousand whites, and 
as many savage warriors.'' ^ 

The reproach of tliis mortifying incident cannot be lifted 
from off Hull's memory ; but for this very reason, in weigh- 
ing the circumstances, it is far less than justice to forget 
his years, verging on old age, his long dissociation from 
military life, his personal courage frequently sliown during 
the War of Independence, nor the fact that, tliough a 
soldier on occasion, he probably never had the opportunity 
to form correct soldierly standards. To the credit account 
should also be carried the timely and really capable pi'esen- 

1 Hull's Trial. Testimouy of Captain Eastmau, p. 100, aud of Dalliby, 
Orduauce Officer, p. 84. 

2 Ibid. Hull's Defence, pp. 59-60. 



350 THE WAR OF 1S12 

tation of the conditions of the field of operations already 
quoted, submitted by him to the Government, which should 
not have needed such demonstration. The mortification 
of the coiuitr}^ fastened on his name ; but had the measures 
urged by him been taken, had his expedition received due 
support by energetic operations elsewhere, events need not 
have reached the crisis to which he proved unequal. The 
true authors of the national disaster and its accompanying 
humiliation are to be sought in the national administra- 
tions and legislatures of the preceding ten or twelve years, 
upon whom rests the responsibility for the miserably un- 
prepared condition in which the country was plunged into 
war. Madison, too tardily repentant, wrote, " The com- 
mand of the Lakes by a superior force on the water ought 
to have been a fundamental part in the national policy 
from the moment the peace [of 1783] took place. What 
is now doing for the command proves what may be 
done."i 

1 Madison to Dearborn, Oct. 7, 1812. Writings, vol. ii, p. 547. 



CHAPTER VII 

OPERATIONS ON THE NORTHERN FRONTIER 
AFTER HULL'S SURRENDER. EUROPEAN 
EVENTS BEARING ON THE WAR 

BY August 25, nine days after the capitulation 
of Detroit, Brock was again writing from Fort 
^ George, by Niagara, About the time of his de- 
parture for Maiden, Prevost had received from 
Foster, late British minister to Washington, and now in 
Nova Scotia, letters foreshadowing the repeal of the Orders 
in Council. In consequence he had sent his adjutant-gen- 
eral. Colonel Baynes, to Dearborn to negotiate a suspension 
of hostilities. Like all intelligent flags of truce, Baynes 
kept his eyes wide open to indications in the enemy's lines. 
The militia, he reported, were not uniformed ; they were 
distinguished from other people of the country only by 
a cockade. The regulars were mostly recruits. The war 
was unpopular, the great majority impatient to return to 
their homes ; a condition Brock observed also in the Cana- 
dians. They avowed a fixed determination not to pass 
the frontier. Recruiting for the regular service went on 
very slowly, though pay and bounty were liberal. Dear- 
born appeared over sixty, strong and healthy, but did 
not seem to possess the energy of mind or activity of 
body requisite to his post. In short, from the actual state 
of the American forces assembled on Lake Champlain, 
Baynes did not think there was any intention of invasion. 
From its total want of discipline and order, the militia could 
not be considered formidable when opposed to well-dis- 



352 THE WAJl OF 1S12 

ciplined Briti-sli regulars.^ Of this prognostic the war was 
to furnish sufiicient saddening proof. The militia con- 
tained excellent material for soldiers, but soldiers they 
were not. 

Dearborn declined to enter into a formal armistice, as 
beyond his powers ; but he consented to a cessation of 
hostilities pending a reference to Washington, agreeing 
to direct all commanders of posts within his district to 
abstain from offensive operations till further orders. This 
suspension of arms included the Niagara line, from action 
upon which Hull had expected to receive support. \n his 
defence Hull claimed that this arrangement, in which his 
army was not included, had freed a number of troops to 
proceed against him; but the comparison of dates shows" 
that every man present at Detroit in the British force liad 
gone forward before the agreement could be known. The 
letter engaging to remain on the defensive only was signed 
by Dearborn at Greenbush, near Albany, August 8. The 
same day Brock was three hundred and tifty miles to the 
westward, embarking at Long Point for Maiden ; and 
among his papers occurs the statement that the strong- 
American force on the Niagara frontier compelled him to 
take to Detroit only one half of the militia that volun- 
teered.2 His military judgment and vigor, unaided, had 
enabled him to abandon one line, and tliat the most impor- 
tant, concentrate all available men at another point, effect 
there a decisive success, and return betimes to his natural 
centre of operations. He owed nothing to outside mili- 
tary diplomacy. On the contrary, he deeply deplored the 
measure which now tied his hands at a moment when the 
Americans, though restrained from fighting, were not pre- 

^ Baynes to Prevost. Canadian Archives, C. 377, pp. 27-37. 

- Life of Brock, p. 2.58. Brock first heard of the suspension August 23, 
at Fort Erie, on his return toward Niagara. Life, p. 274. See also a letter 
from Brock to the American General Van Rensselaer, in the Defence of 
General Dearborn, by IL A. S. Dearborn, p. 8. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 353 

vented from bringing up re-enforcements to the positions 
confronting him. 

Dearborn's action was not approved by the Administra- 
tion, and the armistice was ended September 4, by notifica- 
tion. Meantime, to strengthen the British Niagara frontier, 
all the men and ordnance that could now be spared from 
Amherstburg had been brought back by Brock to Fort Erie, 
which was on the lake of that name, at the upper end of the 
Niagara River. Although still far from secure, owing to 
the much greater local material resources of the United 
States, and the preoccupation of Great Britain with the 
Peninsular War, which prevented her succoring Canada, 
Brock's general position was immensely improved since 
the beginning of hostilities. His successes in the West, 
besides rallying the Indians by thousands to his support, 
had for the time so assured that frontier as to enable him 
to concentrate his efforts on the East ; while the existing 
British naval superiority on both lakes, Erie and Ontario, 
covered his flanks, and facilitated transportation — com- 
munications — from Kingston to Niagara, and thence to 
Maiden, Detroit, Mackinac, and the Great West. To 
illustrate the sweep of this influence, it may be mentioned 
here — for there will be no occasion to repeat — that an 
expedition from Mackinac at a later period captured the 
isolated United States post at Prairie du Chien, on the 
Mississippi, on the western border of what is now 
the state of Wisconsin. Alread}^ at the most critical 
period, the use of the water had enabled Brock, by simul- 
taneous movements, to send cannon from Fort George by 
way of Fort Erie to Fort Maiden ; while at the same time 
replacing those thus despatched by others brought from 
Toronto and Kingston. In short, control of the lakes 
conferred upon him the recognized advantage of a central 
position — the Niagara peninsula — having rapid com- 
munication by interior lines with the flanks, or extremities ; 

VOL. I. — 23 



354 THE WAR OF 1812 

to Maiden and Detroit in one direction, to Toronto and 
Kingston in the other. 

It was just here, also, that the first mischance befell him ; 
and it cannot but be a subject of professional pride to a 
naval officer to trace the prompt and sustained action of his 
professional ancestors, who reversed conditions, not merely 
by a single brilliant blow, upon which popular reminiscence 
fastens, but by efficient initiative and sustained sagacious 
exertion through a long period of time. On September 3, 
Captain Isaac Chauncey had been ordered from the New 
York navy yard to command on Lakes Erie and Ontario. 
Upon the latter there was already serving Lieutenant 
Melancthon T. Woolsey, in command of a respectable ves- 
sel, the brig " Oneida," of eighteen 24-pounder carronades. 
On Erie there was as yet no naval organization nor vessel. 
Chauncey consequently, on September 7, ordered thither 
Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliott to select a site for equipping 
vessels, and to contract for two to be built of three hundred 
tons each. Elliott, who arrived at Buffalo on the 14th, 
was still engaged in this preliminary work, and was fitting 
some purchased schooners behind Squaw Island, three 
miles below, when, on October 8, there arrived from 
Maiden, and anchored off Fort Erie, two British armed 
brigs, the " Detroit " — lately the American " Adams," 
surrendered with Hull — and the " Caledonia,"' which 
co-operated so decisively in the fall of Mackinac. The 
same day he learned the near approach of a body of ninety 
seamen, despatched by Chauncey from New York on 
September 22.i He sent to hasten them, and they ariived 
at noon. The afternoon was spent in preparations, wea- 
pons having to be obtained from the army, which also 
supplied a contingent of fifty soldieis. 

The seamen needed refreshment, having come on foot five 

1 Chauncey to the Secretary of the Navy, Sept. 26, 1812. Captaius' Letters, 
Navy Department MSS. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 355 

hundred miles, but Elliott would not trifle with opportunity. 
At 1 A.M. of October 9 he shoved off with a hundred men 
in two boats, and at 3 was alongside the brigs. From 
Buffalo to Fort Eiie is about two miles ; but this distance 
was materially increased by the strong downward current 
toward the falls, and by the necessity of pulling far up 
stream in order to approach the vessels from ahead, which 
lessened the chance of premature discovery, and materially 
shortened the interval between being seen and getting 
alongside. The enemy, taken by surprise, were quickly 
overpowered, and in ten minutes both prizes were under 
sail for the American shore. The "Caledonia" was beached 
at Black Rock, where was Elliott's temporary na^'y yard, 
just above Squaw Island ; but the wind did not enable the 
" Detroit," in which he himself was, to stem the downward 
drift of the river. After being swept some time, she had 
to anchor under the fire of batteries at four hundred yards 
range, to which reply was made till the powder on board 
was expended. Then, the berth proving too hot, the cable 
was cut, sail again made, and the brig run ashore on Squaw 
Island within range of both British and American guns. 
Here Elhott abandoned her, she having already several 
large shot through her hull, with rigging and sails cut to 
pieces, and she was boarded in turn by a body of the enemy. 
Under the conditions, however, neither side could remain 
to get her off, and she was finally set on fire by the Ameri- 
cans.i Besides the vessel herself, her cargo of ordnance 
was lost to the British. American seamen afterward recov- 
ered from the wreck by night four 12-pounders, and a 
quantity of shot, which were used with effect. 

The conduct of this affair was of a character frequent in 
the naval annals of that day. Elliott's quick discernment of 
the opportunity to reverse the naval conditions which consti- 

1 Elliott's report of this affair will be found in the Captains' Letters, Navy 
Department MSS., forwarded by Chauncey Oct. 16, 1812. 



356 THE WAR OF 1812 

tuted so much of the British advantage, and the prompt- 
ness of his action, are qualities more noticeable than the 
mere courage displayed. " A strong inducement," he wrote, 
" was that with these two vessels, and those I have pur- 
chased, I should be able to meet the remainder of the British 
force on the Upper Lakes." The mishap of the " Detroit " 
paitly disappointed this expectation, and the British aggre- 
gate remained still superior ; but the units lost their perfect 
freedom of movement, the facility of transportation was 
greatly diminished, and the American success held in it 
the germ of future development to the superiority which 
Perry achieved a year later. None realized the extent of 
the calamity more keenly than Brock. " This event is 
particularly unfortunate," he wrote to the Governor General, 
" and may reduce us to incalculable distress. The enemy 
is making every exertion to gain a naval superiority on 
both lakes ; which, if they accomplisli, I do not see how we 
can retain the country. More vessels are fitting for war on 
the other side of Squaw Island, which I should have at- 
tempted to destroy but for your Excellency's repeated 
instructions to forbear. Now such a force is collected for 
their protection as will render every operation against them 
very hazardous." ^ To his subordinate, Procter, at Detroit, 
he exposed the other side of the calamity .^ "This will 
reduce us to great distress. You will have the goodness to 
state the expedients you possess to enable us to replace, as 
far as possible, the heavy loss w'e have sustained in the 
' Detroit ' . . . A quantity of provisions was ready to be 
shipped ; but as I am sending you the flank companies of 
the Newfoundland Regiment by the ' Lady Prevost,' she 
oannot take the provisions." Trivial details these may 
;seem ; but in war, as in other matters, trivialities some- 
times decide great issues, as the touching of a button may 

1 Life of Brock, p. 315. 

2 Ibid., p. 316. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 357 

blow up a reef. The battle of Lake Erie, as before said, 
was precipitated by need of food. 

Brock did not survive to witness tlie consequences which 
he appiehended, and which, had he lived, he possibly might 
have done something to avert. The increasing strength he 
had observed gathering about Elliott's collection of pur- 
chased vessels corresponded to a gradual accumulation of 
American land force along the Niagara line ; the divisions 
of which above and below the Falls were under two com- 
manders, between whom co-operation was doubtful. Gen- 
eral Van Rensselaer of the New York militia, who had the 
lower division, determined upon an effort to seize the heights 
of Queenston, at the head of navigation from Lake Ontario. 
The attempt was made on October 13, before daybreak. 
Brock, whose headquartei's were at Fort George, was 
quickly on the ground ; so quickly, that he narrowly escaped 
capture by tlie advance guard of Americans as they reached 
the summit. Collecting a few men, he endeavored to 
regain the position before the enemy could establish him- 
self in force, and in the charge was instantly killed at the 
head of his troops. 

In historical value, the death of Brock was the one not- 
able incident of tlie day, which otherwise was unproductive 
of results beyond an additional mortification to the United 
States. The Americans gradually accumulated on the 
height to the number of some six hundred, and, had they 
been properly re-enforced, could probably have held their 
ground, affording an opening for further advance. It was 
found impossible to induce the raw, unseasoned men on the 
other side to cross to their support, and after many fruitless 
appeals the American general was compelled to witness the 
shameful sight of a gallant division driven down the cliffs 
to the river, and there obliged to surrender, because their 
comrades refused to go betimes to tlieir relief. 

Van Rensselaer retired from service, and was succeeded 



358 THE WAR OF 1812 

by General Smyth, who now held command of the whole 
line, thirty miles, from Buffalo to Fort Niagara, opposite 
Fort George, where the river enters Lake Ontario. A 
crossing in force, in the upper part of the river, opposite 
Black Rock, was planned by him for November 28. In 
preparation for it an attack was to be made shortly before 
daylight by two advance parties, proceeding separately. One 
was to carry the batteries and spike the guns near the point 
selected for landing; the other, to destroy a bridge five miles 
below, by which re-enforcements might arrive to the enemy. 
To the first of these was attached a party of seventy sea- 
men, who carried out their instructions, spiking and dis- 
mounting the guns. The fighting was unusually severe, 
eisfht out of the twelve naval officers concerned beinsf 
wounded, two mortally, and half of the seamen either 
killed or wounded. Although the bridge was not destroyed, 
favorable conditions for the crossing of the main bodj' had 
been established; but, upon viewing the numbers at his 
disposal, Smyth called a council of war, and after advising 
with it decided not to proceed. This was certainly a case 
of useless bloodshed. General Porter of the New York 
militia, who served with distinguished gallantry on the 
Niagara frontier to the end of the war, was present in this 
business, and criticised Smyth's conduct so severely as to 
cause a duel between them. " If bravery be a virtue," 
wrote Porter, " if the gratitude of a country be due to those 
who gallantly and desperately assert its rights, the govern- 
ment will make ample and honorable provision for the heirs 
of the brave tars who fell on this occasion, as well as for 
those that survive." ^ Another abortive movement toward 
crossing was made a few days later, and with it laud opera- 
tions on the Niagara frontier ended for the year 1812. 
Smyth was soon afterward dropped from the rolls of the 
army. 

^ Porter's Address to the Public. Xiles' Register, vol. iii. p. 284. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 359 

111 the eastern part of Dearborn's military division, where 
he commanded in person, toward Albany and Ciiamplain, 
less was attempted than at Detroit or Niagara. To accom- 
plish less would be impossible; but as nothing was seri- 
ously undertaken, nothing also disastrously failed. The 
Commander-in-Chief gave sufiicient disproof of military ca- 
pacity by gravely proposing to " operate with effect at the 
same moment against Niagara, Kingston, and Montreal." ^ 
Such divergence of effort and dissemination of means, 
scanty at the best, upon points one hundred and fifty to two 
hundred miles apart, contravened all sound principle ; to 
remedy which no compensating vigor was discoverable in his 
conduct. In all these quarters, as at Detroit, the enemy were 
perceptibly stronger in the autumn than when the war be- 
gan ; and the feebleness of American action had destroyed 
the principal basis upon which expectation of success had 
rested — the disaffection of the inhabitants of Canada and 
their readiness to side with the invaders. That this dispo- 
sition existed to a formidable extent was well known. It 
constituted a large element in the anxieties of the British 
generals, especially of Brock ; for in his district tliere were 
more American settlers than in Lower Canada.^ On the 
Niagara peninsula, especially, climatic conditions, favorable 
to farming, had induced a large immigration. But local 
disloyalty is a poor reed for an assailant to rest upon, 
and to sustain it in vigorous action commonly requires 
the presence of a force which will render its assistance 
needless. Whatever inclination to rebel there might have 
been was effectually quelled by the energy of Brock, the 
weakness of Hull, and the impotence of Dearborn and his 
subordinates. 

In the general situation the one change favorable to the 

^ See Eustis's Letter to Dearborn, Aug. 15, 1812. Hull's Memoirs of the 
Northwestern Campaign, p. 87. 

2 Life of Brock, pp. 106, 130, 181. 



360 THE WAR OF 1S13 

United States was in a quarter the importance of which 
tlie Administration had been slow to recognize, and 
probably scarcely appreciated even now. The anticipated 
military laurels had vanished like a dream, and the dis- 
inclination of the American people to military life in 
general, and to this war in particular, had shown itself in 
enlistments for the army, which, the President wrote, "fall 
short of the most moderate calculation." The attempt to 
supplement " regulars '" b}^ " volunteers," who, unlike the 
militia, should be under the General Government instead 
of that of the States — a favorite resource always with the 
Legislature of the United States — was " extremely unpro- 
ductive ; " while the militia in service were not under 
obligation to leave their state, and might, if they chose, 
abandon their fellow-countrymen outside its limits to 
slaughter and capture, as they did at Niagara, without in- 
curring military punishment. The governors of the New 
England States, being opposed to the war, refused to go a 
step beyond protecting their own territory from hostilities, 
which they declared were forced upon them by the Admin- 
istration rather than by the British. For this attitude 
there was a semblance of excuse in the utter military in- 
efficiency to which the policy of Jefferson and Madison had 
reduced tlie national government. It was powerless to 
give the several states the protection to which it was 
pledged by the Constitution. The citizens of New York 
had to fortify and defend their own harbor. The reproaches 
of New England on this score were seconded somewhat 
later by the outcries of Maryland ; and if Virginia was 
silent under suffering, it was not because she lacked cause 
for complaint. It is to be remembered that in the matter 
of military and naval unpreparedness the great culprits 
were Virginians. South of Virginia the nature of the 
shore line minimized the local harrying, from which the 
northern part of the community suffered. Nevertheless, 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 361 

there also the coasting trade was nearly destroyed, and 
even the internal navigation seriously harassed. 

Only on tlie Great Lakes had the case of the United 
States improved, wlien winter put an end to most opera- 
tions on the northern frontier. As in the Civil War a half 
century later, so in 1812, the power of the water over 
the issues of tlie land not only was not comprehended by 
the average official, but was incomprehensible to him. 
Armstrong in January, and Hull in March, had insisted 
upon a condition that should have been obvious ; but not 
till September 3, Avhen Hull's disaster had driven home 
Hull's reasoning, did Captain Chauncey receive orders " to 
assume command of the naval force on lakes Erie and 
Ontario, and to use every exertion to obtain control of 
them this fall." All preparations had still to be made, and 
were thrown, most wisely, on the man who was to do the 
work. He was " to use all the means which he might 
judge essential to accomplish the wishes of the govern- 
ment." 1 It is only just to give these quotations, which 
indicate how entirely everything to be done was left to the 
energy and discretion of the officer in charge, who had to 
plan and build up, almost from the foundation, the naval 
force on both lakes. Champlain, apparently by an over- 
sight, was not included in his charge. Near the end of the 
war he was directed to convene a court-martial on some 
occurrences there, and then replied that it had never been 
placed under his command.^ 

Chauncey, who was just turned forty, entered on liis 
duties with a will. Having been for four years in charge 
of the navy yard at New York, he was intimately ac- 
quainted with the resources of the principal depot from 
which he must draw his supplies. On September 26, after 

1 Chauncey to Secretary, Sept. 26, 1812. Captains' Letters, Navy Depart- 
ment MSS. 

2 Chauncey to Secretary, Feb. 24, 1815. Ibid. 



362 THE WAR OF 1812 

three weeks of busy collecting and shipping, he started for 
his station by the very occasional steamboat of tliose days, 
■which required from eighteen to twenty hours for the trip 
to Albany. On the eve of departure, he wrote the Govern- 
ment that he had despatched "one hundred and forty 
ship-carpenters, seven hundred seamen and marines, more 
than one hundred pieces of cannon, the greater part of 
large caliber, with muskets, shot, carriages, etc. The 
carriages have nearly all been made, and the shot cast, 
in that time. Nay, I may say that nearly every article 
that has been sent forward has been made." ^ The words 
convey forcibly the lack of preparation which character- 
ized the general state of the country ; and they suggest also 
the difference in energy and efficiency between a man of 
forty, in continuous practice of his profession, and gen- 
erals of sixty, whose knowledge of their business derived 
over a disuse of more than thirty years, and from experience 
limited to positions necessarily very subordinate. From 
the meagreness of steamer traffic, all this provision of 
men and material had to go by sail vessel to Albany ; and 
Chauncey wrote that his personal delay iu New York was 
no injury, but a benefit, for as it was he should arrive well 
before the needed equipment. 

On October 6 he reached Sackett's Harbor, " in com- 
pany with his Excellency the Governor of New York, 
through the worst roads I ever saw, especially near this 
place, in consequence of which I have ordered the stores 
intended for this place to Oswego, from which place they 
will come by water." Elliott had reported from Buffalo 
tliat " the roads are good, except for thirteen miles, whieii 
is intolerably bad ; so bad that ordnance cannot be brought 
in wagons ; it must come when snow is on the ground, and 
then in sleds." All expectation of contesting Lake Erie 

1 Tlie details of Chauucey's actions are api)ended to his letter of Sejjt. 26, 
1812. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 363 

was therefore abandoned for that year, and effort concen- 
trated on Ontario. There the misfortune of the American 
position was tliat the only harbor on their side of the lake, 
Sackett's, close to the entrance of tlie St. Lawrence, was re- 
mote from the highways of United States internal traffic. 
The roads described by Chauncey cut it oft" from communi- 
cations by land, except in winter and the height of summer ; 
while the historic water route by the Mohawk River, Lake 
Oneida, and the outlet of the latter through the Oswego 
River, debouched upon Ontario at a point utterly insecure 
against weather or hostilities. It was necessary, therefore, 
to accept Sackett's Harbor as the only possible navy yaid 
and station, under the disadvantage that the maintenance of 
it — • and through it, of the naval command of Ontario — 
depended upon this water transport of forty miles of open 
lake from the Oswego River. The danger, when superiority 
of force lapsed, as at times it did, was lessened by the exist- 
ence of several creeks or small rivers, within which coast- 
ing craft could take refuge and find protection from attack 
under the muskets of tlie soldiery. Sackett's Harbor itself, 
though of small area, was a safe port, and under proper 
precautions defensible ; but in neither point of view was it 
comparable with Kingston. 

While in New York, Chauncey's preparations had not 
been limited to what could be done there. By communi- 
cation with Elliott and Woolsey, lie had informed himself 
well as to conditions, and had initiated the purchase and 
equipment of lake craft, chiefly schooners of from forty to 
eighty tons, which were fitted to carry one or two heavy 
guns ; the weight of battery being determined partly by 
their capacity to bear it, and partly by the guns on hand. 
Elliott's report concerning Lake Erie led to his being di- 
verted, at his own suggestion, to the mouth of the Genesee 
and to Oswego, to equip four schooners lying there; for 
arming which cannon before destined to Buffalo were like- 



364 THE WAR OF 1813 

wise turned aside to those points. When Chauncey 
reached Sackett's, he found there also five schooners be- 
longing mainly to the St. Lawrence trade, which had been 
bought under his directions by Woolsey. There was thus 
already a very fair beginning of a naval force ; the only 
remaining apprehension being that, " from the badness of 
the roads and the lowness of the water in the Mohawk, the 
guns and stores will not arrive in time for us to do any- 
thing decisive against the enemy this fall." ^ Should they 
arrive soon enough, he ho^jed to seek the British in their 
own waters by November. Besides these extemporized ex- 
pedients, two ships of twenty-four guns were under con- 
struction at Sackett's, and two brigs of twenty, with three 
gunboats, were ordered on Lake Erie — all to be ready for 
service in the spring, their batteries to be sent on when 
the snow made it feasible. 

After some disappointing detention, the waters of the 
inlet and outlet of Lake Oneida rose sufficiently to enable 
guns to reach Oswego, whence they were safely conveyed 
to Sackett's. On November 2 the report of a hostile 
cruiser in the neighboihood, and fears of her interfering 
with parts of the armaments still in transit, led Chauncey 
to go out with the '' Oneida," the only vessel yet ready, to 
cut off the return of the stranger to Kingston. On this 
occasion he saw three of the enemy's squadron, which, 
tliough superior in force, took no notice of him. This 
slackness to improve an evident opportunity may reason- 
ably be ascribed to the fact that as yet the British vessels 
on the lakes were not in charge of oi'ficers of the Royal 
Navy, but of a force purely provincial and irregular. 
Returning to Sackett's, Chauncey again sailed, on the 
evening of November 6, with the " Oneida " and six armed 
schooners. On the 8th he fell in with a single British 

1 Chauncey to Secretary of tlie Navy, Oct. 8, 12, 21, 1812. Captaius' 
Letters. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 365 

vessel, the " Royal George," of twenty-one guns, which 
retreated that night into Kingston. The Americans 
followed some distance into the harbor on the 9tli, and 
engaged both the ship and the works ; but the breeze 
blowing straight in, and becoming heavy, made it impru- 
dent longer to expose the squadron to the loss of spars, 
under the fire of shore guns, when retreat had to be effected 
against the wind. Beating out, a British armed schooner 
was sighted coming in from the westward ; but after some 
exchange of shots, she also, though closely pressed, escaped 
by her better local knowledge, and gained the protection of 
the port. The squadron returned to Sackett's, taking with 
it two lake vessels as prizes, and having destroyed a third 
— all three possible resources for the enemy .^ 

Nothing decisive resulted from this outing, but it fairly 
opened the campaign for the control of the lakes, and 
served to temper officers and men for the kind of task 
before them. It gave also some experience as to the 
strength of the works at Kingston, which exceeded 
Chauncey's anticipations, and seems afterward to have 
exerted influence upon his views of the situation ; but 
at present he announced his intention, if supported by a 
military force, to attack the enemy's vessels at tlieir an- 
chorage. Although several shot had been seen to strike, 
Chauncey himself entertained no doubt that all their dam- 
ages could readily be repaired, and that they would put out 
again, if only to join their force to that already in Toronto. 
Still, on November 13, he reported his certainty that he 
controlled the water, an assurance renewed on the 17th ; 
adding that he had taken on board military stores, with 
which he would sail on the first fair wind for Niagara 
River, and that he was prepared to effect transportation to 
any part of the lake, regardless of the enemy, but not of 

1 Chauncey to Secretary, October 27, November 4, 6, 13. Captains' I-etter^. 
Those for November 6 and 13 can be found in Niles, vol. iii, pp. 20.'>, 2UG. 



366 THE WAR OF 1S12 

the weather. The last reservation was timely, for, sailing 
two days later, the vessels were driven back, one schooner 
being dismasted. As navigation on Erie opened usually 
much later than that upon Ontario, there was reasonable 
certainty that stores could reach the upper lake before they 
were needed in the spring, and the attempt was postponed 
till then. Meantime, however, four of the schooners were 
kept cruising off Kingston, to prevent intercourse between 
it and the other ports.^ 

On December 1 Chauncey wrote that it was no longer 
safe to navigate the lake, and that he would soon lay up 
the vessels. He ascertained subsequently that the recent 
action of the squadron had compelled troops for Toronto 
to march by land, from Kingston, and had prevented the 
transport of needed supplies to Fort (ieorge, thus justify- 
ing his conviction of control esfciblished over the water 
communications. A few tlays befoi'e he had had the sat- 
isfaction of announcing the launch, on November 26, of 
the "Madison," a new ship of the corvette type, of 590 
tons, one third larger than the ocean cruisers " Wasp " and 
" Hornet," of the same class, and with proportionately 
heavy armament ; she carrying twenty-four 32-pounder 
carronades, and they sixteen to eighteen of the like 
weight. " She was built," added Chauncey, " in the short 
time of forty-five days ; and nine weeks ago the timber 
that she is composed of was growing in the forest." ^ 
It seems scarcely necessary to point the moral, M'liich he 
naturally did not draw for the edification of his superiors 
ill tlie Administration, that a like energy displayed on 
Lake Erie, when war was contemplated, would have placed 
Hull's enterprise on the same level of security that was 
obtained for his successor by Perry's victory a year later, 
and at much less cost. 

1 Chauncey to Secretary, November 17. Captains' Letters. 

2 Chauncey to Secretary, Nov. 26, 1812. Ibid. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 367 

With the laying up of the fleet on the lakes operations on 
the northern frontier closed, except in the far West, where 
General Harrison succeeded to the command after Hull's 
capitulation. The loss of Detroit had thrown the American 
front of operations back upon the Maumee ; nor would 
that, perhaps, have been tenable, had conditions in Upper 
Canada permitted Brock to remain wdth the most of his 
force through August and September. As it was, just 
apprehension for the Niagara line compelled his return 
thither ; and the same considerations that decided the place 
of the Commander-in-Chief, dictated also that of the mass 
of his troops. The command at Detroit and Maiden was 
left to Colonel Procter, whose position was defensively 
secured by naval means ; the ship " Queen Charlotte " and 
brig " Hunter " maintaining local control of the water. He 
was, however, forbidden to attempt operations distinctively 
offensive. " It must be explicitly understood," wrote Brock 
to him, " that you are not to resort to offensive warfare for 
the purposes of conquest. Your operations are to be con- 
fined to measures of defence and security." ^ Among these, 
however, Brock included, by direct mention, undertakings 
intended to destroy betimes threatening gatherings of men 
or of stores ; but such action was merely to secure the 
British positions, on the principle, already noted, that of- 
fence is the best defence. How far these restrictions rep- 
resent Brock's own wishes, or reflect simply the known 
views of Sir George Prevost, the Governor General, is 
difficult to say. Brock's last letter to Procter, written 
within a week of his death, directed that the enemy 
should be kept in a state of constant ferment. It seems 
probable, however, that Procter's force was not such as to 
warrant movement with a view to permanent occupation 
beyond Detroit, the more so as the roads were usually 
very bad ; but any effort on the part of the Americans to 

1 Life of Brock, p. 293. 



368 THE WAR OF 1812 

establish posts on the iNIaumee, or along the lake, must be 
promptly cheeked, if possible, lest these should form bases 
whence to march in force upon Detroit or Maiden, "vvhen 
winter had hardened the face of the pfround.^ 

The purpose of the Americans being to recover Detroit, 
and then to renew Hull's invasion, their immediate aim 
was to establish their line as far to the front as it could for 
the moment be successfully maintained. The Maumee was 
such a line, and the one naturally indicated as the advanced 
base of supplies upon which any forward movement by land 
must rest. The obstacle to its tenure, when summer was 
past and autumn rains had begun, was a great swamp, 
known locally as the Black Swamp, some forty miles wide, 
stretching from the Sandusky River on the east to the 
Indiana line on the west, and therefore impeding the direct 
approach from the south to the Maumee. Through this 
Hull had forced his way in June, building a road as he 
went ; but by the time troops had assembled in the autumn 
progress here proved wholly impossible. 

On account of the difficulties of transportation, Harrison 
divided his force into three columns, the supplies of each 
of which in a new country could be more readily sustained 
than those of the whole body, if united ; in fact, the 
exigencies of supply in the case of large armies, even in 
well-settled countries, enforce " dissemination in order to 
live," as Napoleon expressed it. It is of the essence of 
such dissemination that the several divisions shall be near 
enough to support each other if there be danger of attack ; 
but in the case of Harrison, although his dispositions have 
been severely censured on this score, south of the Maumee 
no such danefer existed to a de^ee which could not be 
safely disregarded. The centre column, therefore, was to 

1 In the Canadian Archives fre([uent mention is made of expeditions by 
Protter's forces about the Anierifan lines, as of the British shipping ou the 
Lake front durin<r the autumn of 1812. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1S13 369 

advance over the road opened by Hull ; the right by the 
east of the Sandusky River to its mouth on Lake Erie, 
east of the swamp, whence it could move to the Maumee ; 
while the left, and the one most exposed, from its nearness 
to the Indian country, was to proceed by the Auglaize 
River, a tributary of the Maumee navigable for boats of 
light draught, to Fort Defiance, at the junction of the two 
streams. Had this plan been carried out, the army would 
have held a line from Fort Defiance to the Rapids of the 
Maumee, a distance of about forty miles, on which fortified 
depots could be established prior to furtlier operations ; 
and there would have been to it three chains of suppl}^, 
corresponding to the roads used by the divisions in their 
march. Fort Defiance, with a work at the Rapids, after- 
ward built and called Fort Meigs, would sustain the line 
proper ; while a subsidiary post, subsequently known as 
Fort Stephenson, on the Lower Sandusky, was essential to 
the defence of that road as it approached the lake, and 
thence westward, where it skirted the lake shore, and was 
in measure open to raids from the water. The western 
line of supplies, being liable to attack from the neighbor- 
ing Indians, was further strengthened by works adequate 
to repel savages. 

Fort Defiance on the left was occupied by October 22, 
and toward the middle of December some fifteen hundred 
men had assembled on the right, on the Sandusky, Upper 
and Lower; but the centre column could not get through, 
and the attempt to push on supplies by that route seems 
to have been persisted in beyond the limits of reason- 
able perseverance. Under these conditions, Harrison 
established his headquarters at Upper Sandusky about 
December 20, sending word to General Winchester, com- 
manding at Defiance, to descend the Maumee to the 
Rapids, and there to prepare sleds for a dash against 
Maiden across the lake, when frozen. This was the sub- 

VOL. I. — 24 



370 THE WAR OF 1812 

stitution, under the constraint of circumstances, of a sud- 
den blow in place of regulated advance; for it abandoned, 
momentarily at least, the plan of establishing a permanent 
line. Winchester moved as directed, reaching the Kapids 
January 10, 1813, and fixing himself in position with thir- 
teen hundred men on the north bank, opposite Hull's road. 
Early in the month the swamp froze over, and quantities 
of supplies were hurried forward. The total disposable 
force now under Harrison's command is given as sixty- 
three hundred. 

Preparations and concentration had progressed thus far, 
when an impulsive outburst of sympathy evoked a singu- 
larly inconsiderate and rash movement on the part of the 
division on the Maumee, the commander of which seems 
to have been rather under the influence of his troops than 
in control of them. Word was brought to the camp that 
the American settlement of Frenchtown, beyond the River 
Raisin, thirty miles away toward Detroit, and now within 
British control, was threatened with burning by Indians. 
A council of war decided that relief should be attempted, 
and six hundred and sixty men started on the morning of 
January 17. They dispossessed the enemy and established 
themselves in the town, though with severe losses. Learn- 
ing their success, Winchester himself went to the place 
on the 19th, followed closely by a re-enforcement of two- 
hundred and fifty. More than half his command wa^ now 
thirty miles away from the position assigned it, without 
other base of retreat or support than the remnant left at 
the Rapids. In this situation a superior force of British 
and Indians under Procter crossed the lake on the ice 
and attacked the party thus rashly advanced to French- 
town, which was compelled to surrender by 8 a.m. of 
January 22. 

Winchester had notified Harrison of his proposed action, 
but not in such time as to permit it to be countermanded. 




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EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 371 

Receiving the news on the morning of January 19, Har- 
rison at once recognized the hazardous nature of the steji, 
and ordered forward troops from Upper and Lower San- 
dusky ; proceeding himself to the hitter place, and thence 
to the Rapids, which he reached early on the 20th, ahead 
of the re-enforcements. There was nothing to do but 
await developments until the men from Sandusky arrived. 
At noon of the 22d he received intelligence of the sur- 
render, and saw that, through the imprudence of his sub- 
ordinate, his project of crossing the ice to attack the 
enemy had been crushed by Procter, who had practically 
annihilated one of his principal divisions, beating it in 
detail. 

The loss of so large a part of the force upon which 
he had counted, and the spread of sickness among the 
remainder, arrested Harrison's projects of offensive action. 
The Maumee even was abandoned for a few days, the 
army falling back to Portage River, toward the Sandusky. 
It soon, however, returned to the Rapids, and there Fort 
Meigs was built, which in the sequel proved sufficient to 
hold the position against Procter's attack. The army of 
the Northwest from that time remained purely on the de- 
fensive until the following September, when Perry's vic- 
tory, assuring the control of the lake, enabled it to march 
secure of its communications. 

Whatever chance of success may attend such a dash as 
that against Maiden, planned by Harrison in December, 
or open to Hull in August, the undertaking is essentially 
outside the ordinary rules of warfare, and to be justified 
only by the special circumstances of the case, together with 
the possibility of securing the results obtained. French- 
town, as a particular enterprise, illustrates in some measure 
the case of Maiden. It was victoriously possessed, but 
under conditions which made its tenure more than doubt- 
ful, and the loss of the expeditionary corps more than 



372 THE WAR OF 1812 

probable. Furthermore, if held, it conferred no advan- 
tage. The position was less defensible than the Maumee, 
more exposed because nearer the enemy, more difficult to 
maintain because the communications were thirty miles 
longer, and, finally, it controlled nothing. The name of 
occupation, applied to it, was a mere misnomer, disguis- 
ing a sham. Maiden, on the contrary, if effectually held, 
would confer a great benefit ; for in the hands of an enemy 
it menaced tlie communications of Detroit, and if coupled 
with command of the water, as was the case, it controlled 
them, as Hull found to his ruin. To gain it, therefore, 
justified a good deal of risk; yet if seized, unless control 
of the water were also soon established, it would, as com- 
pared with Detroit, entail upon the Americans the addi- 
tional disadvantage that Frenchtown incurred over the 
Maumee, — an increase of exposure, because of longer and 
more exposed lines of communication. Though Maiden 
was valuable to the British as a local base, with all the 
benefits of nearness, it was not the only one they possessed 
on the lakes. The loss of it, therefore, so long as they 
possessed decided superiority in armed shipping, though 
a great inconvenience, would not be a positive disability. 
With the small tonnage they had on the lake, however, 
it would have become extremely difficult, if not impossi- 
ble, to transport and maintain a force sufficient seriously 
to interrupt the road from the Maumee, upon which 
Detroit depended. 

In short, in all ordinary warfare, and in most that is 
extraordinary and seems outside the rules, one principle 
is sure to enforce itself with startling emphasis, if mo- 
mentarily lost to sight or forgotten, and that is the need 
of secured communications. A military body, land or sea, 
may abandon its communications for a brief period, strictly 
limited, expecting soon to restore them at the same or some 
other point, just as a caravan can start across the desert 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 373 

with food and water which will last until another base is 
reached. There is no surrender of certainty in such a 
case; but a body of troops thrown into a position where 
it has no security of receiving supplies, incurs a risk that 
needs justification, and can receive it only from special 
circumstances. No position within striking distance of 
the lake shore was permanently secure unless supported 
by naval power; because all that is implied by the term 
" communications " — facility for transporting troops, sup- 
plies, and ammunition, rapidity of movement from point 
to point, central position and interior lines — all depended 
upon the control of the water, from Mackinac to the rapids 
of the St. Lawrence. 

This truth, announced before the war by Hull and Arm- 
strong, as well as by Harrison somewhat later, and suffi- 
ciently obvious to any thoughtful man, was recognized in 
act by Harrison and the Government after the French- 
town disaster. The general was not responsible for the 
blunder of his subordinate, nor am I able to see that his 
general plans for a land campaign, considered independ- 
ent of the water, lacked either insight, judgment, or 
energy. He unquestionably made very rash calculations, 
and indulged in wildly sanguine assurances of success; 
but this was probably inevitable in the atmosphere in 
which he had to work. The obstacles to be overcome 
were so enormous, the people and the Government, mili- 
tarily, so ignorant and incapable, that it was scarcely pos- 
sible to move efficiently without adopting, or seeming to 
adopt, the popular spirit and conviction. Facts had now 
asserted themselves through the unpleasant medium of 
experience, and henceforth it was tacitly accepted that 
nothing could be done except to stand on the defensive, 
until the navy of Lake Erie, as yet unbuilt, could exert 
its power. Until that day came, even the defensive posi- 
tions taken were rudely shaken by Procter, a far from 



374 ■ 77/7^ TIM/.' OF 1812 

efficient officer, but possessed still of the power of the 
lakes, and following, though over-feebly, the spirit of 
Brock's instructions, to attack the enemy's posts and 
keep things in a ferment. 

AVith the Frenchtown affair hostilities on the Canada 
frontier ceased until the following April; but the winter 
months were not therefore passed in inactivity. Chaun- 
cey, after laying up his ships at Sackett's Harbor, and 
representing to the Government the danger to them and 
to the navy yard, now that frost had extended over the 
waters the solidity of the ground, enabling the enemy to 
cross at will, departed to visit his hitherto neglected com- 
mand on Lake Erie. He had already seen cause to be 
dissatisfied with Elliott's choice of a navy yard, known 
usually by the name Black Rock, a quarter of a mile 
above Squaw Island. The hostile shores were here so 
close together that even musketry could be exchanged; 
and Elliott, when reporting his decision, said "" the river 
is so narrow that the soldiers are shooting at each other 
across." There was the further difficulty that, to reach 
the open lake, the vessels would have to go three miles 
against a current that ran four knots an hour, and much 
of the way within point-blank range of the enemy. Nev- 
ertheless, after examining all situations on Lake Erie, 
Elliott had reported that none other would answer the pur- 
pose ; " those that have shelters have not sufficient water, 
and those with water cannot be defended fiom the enemy 
and the violence of the weather."^ Here he had collected 
materials and gathered six tiny vessels ; the largest a brig 
of ninety tons, the others schooners of from forty to 
eighty. These he began to equip and alter about the 
middle of October, upon the arrival of the carpenters sent 
bv Chauncey; but the British kept up such a fire of shot 

1 Elliott to Chauncey, Sept. 14, 1812. Captains' Letter.s, Navy Dejjart- 

TllCllt. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 875 

and shell that the carpenters quitted their work and 
returned to New York, leaving the vessels with their 
decks and sides torn up.^ 

They were still in this condition when Chauncey came, 
toward the end of December; and although then hauled 
into a creek behind Squaw Island, out of range, there 
were no workmen to complete them. He passed on to 
Presqu'Isle, now Erie, on the Pennsylvania shore, and 
found it in every way eligible as a port, except that there 
were but four or five feet of water on the bar. Vessels 
of war within could reach the lake only by being lightened 
of their guns and stores, a condition impracticable in the 
presence of a hostile squadron ; but the local advantages 
were much superior to those at Black Rock, and while it 
could be hoped that a lucky opportunity might insure the 
absence of the enemy's vessels, the enemy's guns on the 
Niagara shore were fixtures, unless the American army 
took possession of them. Between these various consider- 
ations Chauncey decided to shift the naval base from Black 
Rock to Erie ; and he there assembled the materials for the 
two brigs, of three hundred tons each, which formed the 
backbone of Perry's squadron nine months later.^ For 
supplies Erie depended upon Philadelphia and Pittsburg, 
there being from the latter place water communication by 
the Alleghany River, and its tributary the French River, to 
within fifteen miles, whence the transportation was by 
good road. Except timber, which grew upon the spot, 
the materials — iron, cordage, provisions, and guns — 
came mainly by this route from Pennsylvania ; a num- 
ber of guns, however, being sent from Washington. By 
these arrangements the resources of New York, relieved 

1 Chauncey to the Secretary, Oct. 22, 1812. Captains' Letters, Navy De- 
partment. 

- Cliauncey to the Secretary, Dec. 25, 1812 ; Jan. 1 and 8, and Feb. 
16, 1813. Captains' Letters. 



376 THE WAR OF 1812 

of Lake Erie, were concentrated upon Lakes Ontario and 
Champlain. 

. Chauncey further provided for the defence of Black 
Rock by its own resources against sudden attack; the 
army, except a local force of three hundred men, having 
gone into winter quarters ten miles back from the Niagara. 
He then returned to Sackett's Harbor January 19, where 
he found preparations for protection even less satisfactor}^ 
than upon Lake Erie, ^ although the stake was far greater ; 
for it may safely be said that the fall of either Kingston 
or Sackett's would have decided the fate of Lake Ontario 
and of Upper Canada, at once and definitively. It had 
now become evident that, in order to decide superiority 
on the water, there was to be between these neighboring 
and hostile stations the race of ship-building, which be- 
came and continued the most marked feature of the war 
on this lake. Chauncey felt the increasing necessity thus 
entailed for his presence on the scene. He was propor- 
tionately relieved by receiving at this time an application 
from Commander Oliver H. Perry to serve vuider him on 
the lakes, and immediately, on January 21, applied for 
his orders, stating that he could "be employed to great 
advantage, particularly on Lake Erie, where I shall not 
be able to go so early as I expected, owing to the increas- 
ing force of the enemy on this lake." This marks the 
official beginning of Perry's entrance upon the duty in 
which he won a distinction that his less fortunate supe- 
rior failed to achieve. At this time, however, Chauncey 
hoped to attain such superiority by the opening of spring, 
and to receive such support from the army, as to capture 
Kingston by a joint operation, the plan for which he sub- 
mitted to the Department. That accomplished, he would 
be able to transfer to Lake Erie the force of men needed 

^ See Chauncey's letters of Dec. 1, 1812, ami Jan. 20, 1813. Captaius"" 
Letters. 



EVENTS ON THE LAKE FRONTIER, 1812 377 

to destroy the enemy's fleet there. ^ This expectation was 
not fulfilled, and Perry remained in practically independ- 
ent command upon the upper lakes. 

The season of 1812 may be said, therefore, to have 
closed with the American squadron upon Lake Ontario 
concentrated in Sackett's Harbor, where also two new 
and relatively powerful ships were building. Upon Lake 
Erie the force was divided between Black Rock, where 
Elliott's flotilla lay, and Erie, where the two brigs were 
laid down, and four other gunboats building. The con- 
centration of these two bodies could be effected only by 
first taking possession of the British side of the Niagara 
River. This done, and the Black Rock vessels thus re- 
leased, there still remained the bar at Erie to pass. The 
British force on Ontario was likewise divided, between 
Toronto and Kingston, the vessels afloat being at the 
latter. Neither place, however, was under such fetters 
as Black Rock, and the two divisions might very possibly 
be assembled despite the hostile fleet. On the upper 
lake their navy was at Amherstburg, where also was 
building a ship, inferior in force, despite her rig, to 
either of the brigs ordered by Chauncey at Erie. The 
difficulties of obtaining supplies, mechanics, and seamen, 
in that then remote region, imposed great hindrances upon 
the general British preparations. There nevertheless re- 
mained in their hands, at the opening of the campaign, the 
great advantages over the Americans — first, of the separa- 
tion of the latter's divisions, enforced by the British hold- 
ing the bank of the Niagara; and secondly, of the almost 
insuperable difficulty of crossing the Erie bar unarmed, if 
the enemy's fleet kept in position near it. That the Brit- 
ish failed to sustain these original advantages condemns 
their management, and is far more a matter of military 
criticism than the relative power of the two squadrons in 

1 Chauncey to the Secretary, Jan. 21, Feb. 22, 1813. Captains' Letters. 



378 THE WAR OF 1812 

the battle of September 10. The principal business of 
each commander was to be stronger than the enemy 
when they met. That the American accomplished this, 
despite serious obstacles, first by concentrating his force, 
and second by crossing the bar unimpeded, so that when 
he encountered his opponent he Avas in decisively superior 
force, is as distinctly to his credit as it would have been 
distinctly to his discredit had the odds been reversed by 
any fault of his. Perry by diligent efficiency overcame his 
difficulties, combined his divisions, gained the lake, and, 
by commanding it, so cut off his enemy's supplies that he 
compelled him to come out, and fight, and be destroyed. 
To compare the force of the two may be a matter of 
curious interest; but for the purpose of making compari- 
sons of desert between them it is a mere waste of ink, 
important only to those who conceive the chief end of 
war to be fighting, and not victory. 

The disaster at Frenchtown, with the consequent aban- 
donment of all project of forward movement by the Army 
of the Northwest, may be regarded as the definite termina- 
tion of the land campaign of 1812. Before resuming the 
account of the ocean operations of the same period, it is 
expedient here to give a summaiy of European conditions 
at the same time, for these markedly affected the policy 
of the Biitish Government towards the United States, even 
after war had been formally declared. 

The British Orders in Council of 1807, modified in 1809 
in scope, though not in principle, had been for a long 
while the grievance chiefly insisted upon by the United 
States. Against them mainly was directed, by Jefferson 
and Madison, the system of commercial restrictions which 
it was believed would compel their repeal. Consequently, 
when the British Government had abolished the obnox- 
ious Orders, on June 23, 1812, with reservations probably 



EUROPEAN CONDITIONS IN 1812 379 

admissible by the United States, it was unwilling- to believe 
that war could still not be avoided; nor that, even if 
begun in ignorance of the repeal, it could not be stopped 
without further concession. Till near the end of the year 
1812 its measures were governed by this expectation, 
powerfully re-enforced by momentous considerations of 
European events, the effect of which upon the United 
States requires that they be stated. 

In June, 1812, European politics were reaching a crisis, 
the issue of which could not then be forecast. War had 
begun between Napoleon and Russia ; and on June 24 the 
Emperor, crossing the Niemen, invaded the dominion of 
the Czar. Great Britain, already nine years at war with 
France, had just succeeded in detaching Russia from her 
eneni}', and ranging her on her own side. The accession 
of Sweden to this alliance conferred complete control of 
the Baltic, thus releasing a huge British fleet hitherto 
maintained there, and opening an important trade, de- 
barred to Great Britain in great measure for four years 
past. But on the other hand. Napoleon still, as during 
all this recent period, controlled the Continent from the 
Pyrenees to the Vistula, carrying its hosts forward against 
Russia, and closing its ports to British commerce to the 
depressing injury of British finance. A young Canadian, 
then in England, in close contact with London business 
life, wrote to his home at this period: "There is a gen- 
eral stagnation of commerce, all entrance to Europe being 
completely shut up. There was never a time known to 
compare with the present, nearly all foreign traders be- 
coming bankrupt, or reduced to one tenth of their former 
trade. Merchants, who once kept ten or fifteen clerks, 
have now but two or three ; thousands of half -starved dis- 
charged clerks are skulking about the streets. Custom- 
house duties are reduced upwards of one half. Of such 
dread power are Bonaparte's decrees, which have of late 



380 THE WAR OF 1812 

been enforced in the strictest manner all over the Continent^ 
that it Jias almost ruined the commerce of England." ^ 

A month before the United States declared war the 
perplexities of the British Government were depicted by 
the same writer, in terms which palpably and graphically 
reflect the contemporary talk of the counting-house and 
the dinner-table: "If the Orders in Council are repealed, 
the trade of the United States will flourish beyond all 
former periods. They will then have the whole com- 
merce of the Continent in their hands, and the British, 
though blockading with powerful armaments the hostile 
ports of Europe, will behold fleets of American mer- 
chantmen enter in safety the harbors of the enemy, and 
carry on a brisk and lucrative trade, whilst Englishmen, 
who command the ocean and are sole masters of the deep, 
must quietly suffer two thirds of their shipping to be dis- 
mantled and lie useless in little rivers or before empty 
warehouses. Their seamen, to earn a little salt junk and 
flinty biscuits, must spread themselves like vagabonds over 
the face of the earth, and enter the service of any nation. 
If, on the contrary, the Government continue to enforce 
the Orders, trade will still remain in its present deplorable 
state; an American war will follow, and poor Canada will 
bear the brunt." Cannot one see the fine old fellows of 
the period shaking their heads over their wine, and hear 
the words which the lively young provincial takes down 
almost from their lips ? They portray truly, however, the 
anxious dilemma in which the Government was living, 
and explain concisely the conflicting considerations which 
brought on the war with the United States. From this 
embarrassing situation the current 3'ear brought a 'double 
relief. The chance of American competition was re- 
moved by the declaration of war, and exclusion from the 
Continent by Napoleon's reverses. 

1 Ridout, " Ten Years in Ujijkt Canada," pp. 52, 58, 115. 



EUROPEAN CONDITIONS IN 1812 381 

While matters were thus in northern and central Europe, 
in the far southwest the Spanish peninsula had for the same 
four dreary years been the scene of desolating strife, in 
which from the beginning Great Britain had taken a most 
active part, supporting the insurgent people with armies 
and money against the French legions. ^ The weakening 
effect of this conflict upon the Emperor, and the tremen- 
dous additional strain upon his resources now occasioned 
by the break with Russia, were well understood, and 
hopes rose high; but heavy in the other scale were his 
unbroken record of success, and the fact that the War 
in the Peninsula, the sustenance of which was now doubly 
imperative in order to maintain the fatal dissemination of 
his forces between the two extremities of Europe, de- 
pended upon intercourse with the United States. The 
■corn of America fed the British and their allies in the 
Peninsula, and so abundantly, that flour was cheaper in 
Lisbon than in Liverpool. In 1811, 802 American vessels 
entered the Tagus to 800 British ; and from all the rest 
of the outside world there came only 75. The Peninsula 
itself, Spain and Portugal together, sent but 452.^ The 
merchants of Baltimore, petitioning against the Non-In- 
tercourse Act, said that $100,000,000 were owing by 
British merchants to Americans, which could only be 
repaid by importations from England ; and that this debt 
was chiefly for shipments to Spain and Portugal. ^ The 
yearly export thither, mainly for the armies, was 700,000 
barrels of flour, besides grain in other forms. ^ The main- 
tenance of this supply would be endangered by war. 

Upon the continuance of peace depended also the en- 
joyment of the relatively tranquil conditions which Great 
Britain, after years of vexation, had succeeded at last 
in establishing in the western basin of the Atlantic, and 
especially in the Caribbean Sea. In 1808 the revolt of 

1 Niles' Register, vol ii. p. 42. 2 ibid., p. 119. « Ibid., p. .303. 



382 THE WAR OF 1S12 

the Spanish people turned the Spanish West Indies once 
more to her side; and in 1809 and 1810 the conquest of 
the hist of the French ishmds gave lier control of the 
whole region, depriving French privateers of every base 
for local operations against British commerce. In 1812, 
by returns to September 1, the Royal Navy had at sea 
one hundred and twenty ships of the line and one hundred 
and forty-tive frigates, besides four hundred and twenty- 
one other cruisers, sixteen of which were larger and the 
rest smaller than the frigate class — a total of six hundred 
and eighty-six. 1 Of these there were on the North Am- 
erican and West India stations only three of the line, 
fifteen frigates, and sixty-one smaller — a total of seventy- 
nine. ^ The huge remainder of over six hundred ships of 
war were detained elsewhere by the exigencies of the con- 
test, the naval range of which stretched from the Levant 
to the shores of Denmark and Norway, then one kingdom 
under Napoleon's control; and in the far Eastern seas ex- 
tended to the Straits of Sunda, and beyond. From Antwerp 
to Venice, in various ports, when the Empire fell. Napoleon 
had over a hundred ships of the line and half a hundred 
frigates. To hold these in check was in itself a heavy 
task for the British sea power, even though most of the 
colonial ports which might serve as bases for their external 
action had been wrested from France. A hostile America 
would open to the French navy a number of harbors 
which it now needed; and at the will of the Emperor 
the United States might receive a division of ships of a 
class she lacked entirely, but could both officer and man. 
One of Napoleon's great wants was seamen, and it was 
perfectly understood by intelligent naval officers, and by 
appreciative statesmen like John Adams and Gouverneur 
Morris, that a fleet of ships of the line, based upon Ameri- 

1 Naval Chronicle, vol. xxviii. p. 248. 

2 Quoted from Steele's List (British) by Nilos' Register, vol. ii. p. 356. 



EUROPEAN CONDITIONS IN 1812 383 

can resources, would constitute for Great Britain a more 
difficult problem than a vastly larger number in Europe. 
The probability was contemplated by both the British 
Commander-in-Chief and the Admiralty, and was doubt- 
less a chief reason for the comparatively large number of 
ships of the line — eleven — assigned on the outbreak of 
hostilities to a station where otherwise there was no similar 
force to encounter. 1 To bring the French ships and this 
coast-line together was a combination correct in concep- 
tion, and not impracticable. It was spoken of at the 
time — rumored as a design; and had not the attention 
and the means of the Emperor been otherwise preoccuj^ied, 
probably would have been attempted, and not impossibly 
effected. 

To avert such a conjuncture by the restoration of peace 
was necessarily an object of British policy. More than 
that, however, was at stake. The Orders in Council 
had served their turn. In conjunction with Napoleon's 
Continental System, by the misery inflicted upon all the 
countries under his control, they had brought about the 
desperation of Russia and the resistance of the Czar, who 
at flrst had engaged in the Emperor's policy. Russia and 
France were at war, and it was im]3erative at once to re- 
double the pressure in the Peninsula, and to recuperate 
the financial strength of Great Britain, by opening every 
possible avenue of supply and of market to British trade, 
in order to bring the whole national power, economical 
and military, to bear effectively upon Avhat promised to 
be a death struggle. The repeal of the Orders, with 
the consequent admission of American merchant shij)s to 
every hostile port, except such few as might be effectively 
blockaded in accordance with the accepted principles of 
International Law, was the price offered for the preser- 

1 Croker to Warren, Nov, 18,1812, and March 20, 1813. British Admi- 
ralty MSS. Out-Letters. 



384 THE WAR OF 1812 

vation of peace, and for readmission to the American 
market, closed to British manufacturers and merchants 
by the Non-Importation Acts. This extension of British 
commerce, now loudly demanded by the British people, 
was an object to be accomplished by the same means that 
should prevent the American people from constituting 
themselves virtually the allies of Napoleon by going to 
war. Should this dreaded alternative, however, come 
to pass, not only would British trade again miss the 
market, the loss of which had already caused widespread 
suffering, but, in common with it, British navigation, 
British shipping, the chief handmaid of commerce, would 
be exposed in a remote quarter, most difficult to guard, to 
the privateering activity of a people whose aptitude for 
such occupation had been demonstrated in the fight for 
independence and the old French wars. Half a century 
before, in the years 1750-58, there had been fitted out in 
the single port of New York, for war against the French, 
forty-eight privateers, carrying six hundred and ninety- 
five guns and manned by over five thousand men.^ 

The conditions enumerated constituted the principal 
important military possibilities of the sea frontier of tlie 
United States, regarded as an element in the general 
international situation when the year 1812 opened. Its 
importance to France was simply that of an additional 
weight thrown into the scale against Great Britain. 
France, being excluded from the sea, could not be aided 
or injured by the United States directly, but only in- 
directly, through their common enemy; and the same 
was substantially true of the Continent at large. But 
to Great Britain a hostile seaboard in America meant 
the possibility of all that has been stated ; and therefore, 
slowly and unwillingly, but surely, the apprehension of 
war witli its added burden forced the Government to a 

1 Miles' Register, vol. ill. p. 111. Quoted from a publication of 1759. 



EUROPEAN CONDITIONS IN 1812 385 

concession which years of intermittent commercial restric- 
tions b}^ the United States, and of Opposition denuncia- 
tion at home, had not been able to extort. The sudden 
death of Spencer Perceval, the prime minister identified 
with the Orders in Council, possibly facilitated the issue, 
but it had become inevitable by sheer pressure of cir- 
cumstances as they developed. It came to pass, l)y a 
conjuncture most fortunate for Great Britain, and most 
unfavorable to the United States, that the moment of Avar, 
vainly sought to be avoided by both parties, coincided with 
the first rude jar to Napoleon's empire and its speedy final 
collapse; leaving the Union, weakened by internal dissen- 
sion, exposed single-handed to the full force of the British 
power. At the beginning, however, and till toward the 
end of 1812, it seemed possible that for an indefinite 
period the efforts of the Americans would receive the 
support derived from the inevitable preoccupation of their 
enemy with European affairs ; nor did many doubt Napo- 
leon's success against Rvissia, or that it would be followed 
by Great Britain's abandoning the European struggle as 
hopeless. 

For such maritime and political contingencies the 
British Admiralty had to prepare, when the near pros- 
pect of war with America threatened to add to the ex- 
tensive responsibilities entailed by the long strife with 
Napoleon. Its measures reflected the double purpose of 
the Government: to secure peace, if possible, yet not to 
surrender policies considered imperative. On May 9, 1<S12, 
identical instructions were issued to each of the admirals 
commanding the four transatlantic stations, — Newfound- 
land, Halifax, Jamaica, and Barbados, — warning them of 
the imminent probability of hostilities, in the event of 
which, by aggressive action or formal declaration on the 
part of the United States, they were authorized to resort 
at once to all customary procedures of war: "to attack, 

VOL. I. — 25 



386 THE WAR OF 1812 

take or sink, burn or destroy, all ships or vessels belong- 
ing to the United States or to the citizens thereof." At 
the same time, however, special stress was laid upon the 
urgent wish of the Government to avoid occasions which 
might induce a collision. "You are to direct the com- 
manders of his Majesty's ships to exercise, except in 
the events hereinbefore specified, all possible forbearance 
toward the United States, and to contribute, as far as 
may depend upon them, to that good understanding which 
it is his Royal Highness 's ^ most earnest wash to main- 
tain."^ The spirit of these orders, together with caution 
not to be attacked unawares, accounts for the absence of 
British ships of war from the neighborhood of the Ameri- 
can coast noted by Rodgers' cruising squadron in the 
spring of 1812. Decatur, indeed, \vas informed by a 
British naval agent that the admiral at Bermuda did not 
permit more than two vessels to cruise at a time, and these 
were instructed not to approach the American coast.^ The 
temper of the controlling element in the Administration, 
and the disposition of American naval officers since the 
" Chesapeake " affair, were but too likely to afford causes 
of misunderstanding in case of a meeting. 

1 The Prince Eegent. George III. was incapacitated at this time. 
* Admiralty Out-Letters, Britisli Records Office. 

3 Rodgers to the Secretary, April 29. 1812. Decatur, June 16, 1812. Cap- 
tains' Letters. 



CHAPTER VIII 

OCEAN WAEFARE AGAINST COMMERCE — PRI- 
VATEERING— BRITISH LICENSES — NAVAL 
ACTIONS: -'WASP" AND "FROLIC"; ''UNITED 
STATES" AND "MACEDONIAN" 

IN anticipation of war the British Admiralty took the 
military measure of consolidating their transatlantic 
stations, with the exception of Newfoundland. The 
Jamaica, Leeward Islands, and Halifax squadrons, 
while retaining their present local organizations, were 
subordinated to a single chief; for which position was 
designated Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, an officer 
of good lighting record, but from his previous career 
esteemed less a seaman than a gallant man. This was 
apparently his first extensive command, although he was 
now approaching sixty; but it was foreseen that the 
British minister might have left Washington in conse- 
quence of a rupture of relations, and that there might 
thus devolve upon the naval commander-in-chief certain 
diplomatic overtures, which the Government had deter- 
mined to make before definitely accepting war as an irre- 
versible issue. Warren, a man of courtly manners, had 
some slight diplomatic antecedents, having represented 
Great Britain at St. Petersburg on one occasion. There 
were also other negotiations anticipated, dependent upon 
political conditions within the Union ; where bitter oppo- 
sitions of opinion, sectional in character, were known to 
exist concerning the course of the Administration in re- 
sorting to hostilities. Warren was instructed on these 
several points. 



388 THE WAR OF 1812 

It was not until July 25, 1812, that a despatch vessel 
from Halifax brought word to England of the attack upon 
the "Belvidera" by Rodgers' squadron on June 24. By 
the same mail Admiral Sawyer wrote that he had sent a 
flag of truce to New York to ask an explanation, and be- 
sides had directed all his cruisers to assemble at Halifax. ^ 
The Government recognized the gravit}- of the news, but 
expressed the opinion that there was no evidence that 
war had been decided upon, and that the action of the 
American commodore had been in conformity with previ- 
ous orders not to permit foreign cruisers within the waters 
of the United States. Some color was lent to this view 
by the circumstance that the " Belvidera "' was reported to 
have been off Sandy Hook, though not in sight of land.^ 
In short, the British Cabinet officially assumed that facts 
were as they wished them to continue; the course best 
adapted to insure the maintenance of peace, if perchance 
not yet broken. 

On July 29, however, definite information was received 
that the United States Government had declared that war 
existed between the two countries. On the 31st the Cab- 
inet took its first measures in consequence.^ One order 
was issued forbidding British merchant vessels to sail 
without convoy for any part of North America or the 
West Indies ; while another laid an embargo on all Ameri- 
can merchant ships in British ports, and directed the cap- 
ture of any met at sea, unless sailing under British licenses, 
as many then did to Continental ports. No other hostile 
steps, such as general reprisals or commercial blockade, 
were at this time authorized ; it was decided to await the 
effect in tlie United States of the repeal of the obnoxious 
Orders in Council. This having taken place only on 
June 23, intelligence of its reception and results could 

1 Naval Chronicle, vol. xxviii. \^. 73. 

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., i)p. 138, 139. 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 339 

not well reach England before the middle of September. 
When Parliament was prorogued on July 30, the speech 
from the throne expressed a willingness still " to hope that 
the accustomed relations of peace and amity between the 
two countries may yet be restored." 

It is a coincidence, accidental, yet noteworthy for its 
significance, that the date of the first hostile action against 
the United States, July 31, was also that of the official 
promulgation of treaties of peace between Great Britain, 
Russia, and Sweden. ^ Accompanied as these were with 
clauses embodying what was virtually a defensive alliance 
of the three Powers against Napoleon, they marked that 
turn of the tide in European affairs which overthrew one 
of the most important factors in the political and military 
anticipations of the United States Administration. " Can 
it be doubted, " wrote Madison on September 6, "that if, 
under the pressure added by our war to that previously 
felt by Great Britain, her Government declines an accom- 
modation, it will be owing to calculations drawn from our 
internal divisions? "^ Of the approaching change, how- 
ever, no sign yet appeared. The reverses of the French 
were still in the far future. Not until September 14 did 
they enter jNIoscow, and news of this event was received 
in the United States only at the end of November. A 
contemporary weekly, under date of December 5, re- 
marked : " Peace before this time has been dictated by 
Bonaparte, as ought to have been calculated upon by 
the dealers (^sid) at St. Petersburg, before they, influ- 
enced by the British, prevailed upon Alexander to embark 
in the War. ... All Europe, the British Islands excepted, 
will soon be at the feet of Bonaparte. "^ This expectation, 
generally shared during the summer of 1812, is an element 

1 Naval Chronicle, vol. xxviii. p. 139. 

2 Writings of Madison (ed. 186.5), vol. ii. p. 545. 

3 Niles' Register, vol. iii. p. 220. 



390 'i'lIE WAR OF 1812 

in the American situation not to be overlooked. As late 
as December 4, Henry Clay, addressing the House of 
Representatives, of which he then was Speaker, said: 
" The British trade shut out from the Baltic — excluded 
from the Continent of p]uro[)e — possibly expelled the 
Black Sea — perishing in South America; its illicit 
avenue to the United States, through Canada, closed — 
was this the period for throwing open our own market by 
abandoning our restrictive system ? Perhaps at this mo- 
ment the fate of the north of Europe is decided, and the 
French Emperor may be dictating the law from Moscow." i 
The following night Napoleon finally abandoned his routed 
army and started on his return to Paris. 

War having been foreseen, the British Government took 
its first step without hesitation. On August G the For- 
eign Office issued Warren's secret instructions, which 
were substantially the repetition of those already ad- 
dressed on July 8 to its representative in Washington. 
It being probable that before they could be received he 
would have departed in consequence of the rupture, 
Warren was to submit the proposition contained in them, 
that the United States Government, in view of the revoca- 
tion of the Orders in Council, so long demanded by it, 
should recall the hostile measures taken. In case of 
acceptance, he was authorized to stop at once all hostili- 
ties within his command, and to give assurance of similar 
action by his Government in every part of the world. If 
this advance proved fruitless, as it did, no orders institut- 
ing a state of Avar were needed, for it already existed; but 
for that contingency Warren received further instructions 
as to the course he was to pursue, in case " a desire should 
manifest itself in any considerable portion of the Ameri- 
can Union, more especially in those States bordering upon 
his Majesty's North American dominions, to return to 

1 Annals of Congress, 1812-13, p. 301. 



J 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 391 

their relations of peace and amity with this country." 
The admiral was to encourage such dispositions, and 
should they take shape in formal act, making overtures 
to him for a cessation of hostilities for that part of the 
country, he was directed to grant it, and to enter into 
negotiations for commercial intercourse between the sec- 
tion thus acting and tlie British dominions. In short, 
if the General Government proved irreconcilable. Great 
Britain was to profit by any sentiment of disunion found 
to exist. 1 

Warren sailed from Portsmouth August 14, arriving in 
Halifax September 26. On the 30th, he despatched to the 
United States Government the proposal for the cessation 
of hostilities. Monroe, the Secretary of State, replied on 
October 27. The President, he said, was at all times 
anxious to restore peace, and at the very moment of 
declaring war had instructed the charge in London to 
make propositions to that effect to the British Ministry. 
An indispensable condition, however, was the abandon- 
ment of the practice of impressment from American ves- 
sels. The President recognized the embarrassment under 
which Great Britain lay, because of her felt necessity to 
control the services of her native seamen, and was willing 
to undertake that hereafter they should be wholly ex- 
cluded from the naval and merchant ships of the United 
States. This should be done under regulations to be 
negotiated between the two countries, in order to obviate 
the injury alleged by Great Britain; but, meanwhile, im- 
pressing from under the American flag must be discon- 
tinued during any armistice arranged. "It cannot be 
presumed, while the parties are engaged in a negotiation 
to adjust amicably this important difference, that the 

1 Castlereagh to tlie Admiralty, Aug. 6 and 12, 1812. British Record ( )ffice 
MSS. Warreu's Letter to the United States Government and Monroe's reply 
are in American State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 595, 596. 



392 THE WAR OF 1S12 

United States would admit the right, or acquiesce in the 
practice of the opposite party, or that Great Britain would 
be unwilling to restrain her cruisers from a practice which 
would have the strongest tendency to defeat the negotia- 
tion." The Orders in Council having been revoked, im- 
pressment remained the only outstanding question upon 
which the United States was absolute in its demand. 
That conceded, upon the terms indicated, all other dif- 
ferences might be referred to negotiation. Upon this 
point Warren had no powers, for his Government was 
determined not to yield. The maritime M'ar therefore 
went on unabated; but it may be mentioned here that 
the President's undertaking to exclude British-born 
seamen from American ships took effect in an Act of 
Congress, approved b}^ him March 3, 1813. He had 
thenceforth in hand a pledge which he considered a full 
guarantee against whatever Great Britain feared to lose by 
ceasing to take seamen from under the American flag. It 
was not so regarded in England, and no formal agreement 
on this interesting subject was ever reached. 

The conditions existing upon his arrival, and the oc- 
currences of the past three months, as then first fully 
known to Warren, deeply impressed him with the large- 
ness of his task in protecting the commerce of Great 
Britain. He found himself at once in the midst of its 
most evident perils, which in the beginning Avere con- 
centrated aliout Halifax, owing to special circumstances. 
Although long seemingly inniiinent, hostilities when they 
actually came had found the mercantile community of the 
United States, for the most part, unbelieving and unpre- 
pared. The cr}^ of " Wolf ! " had been raised so often 
that they did not credit its coming, even when at the 
doors. This was especially the case in New England, 
where the popular feeling against war increased the indis- 
position to think it near. On May 14, Captain Bain- 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 393 

bridge, commanding the Boston navy yard, wrote: "I 
am sorry to say that the people here do not believe we 
are going to war, and are too much disposed to treat onr 
national councils with contempt, and to consider their 
preparations as electioneering."! The presidential elec- 
tion was due in the following November. A Baltimore 
newspaper of the day, criticising the universal rush to 
evade the embargo of April 4, instituted in order to keep 
both seamen and property at home in avoidance of cap- 
ture, added that in justice it must be said that most people 
believed that the embargo, as on former occasions, did not 
mean war.^ 

Under the general sense of unpreparedness, it seemed to 
many inconceivable that the Administration would venture 
to expose the coasts to British reprisals. John Randolph, 
repeating in the House of Representatives in secret session 
a conversation between the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions and the Secretary of State, said : " He was asked 
whether any essential changes would be made in the sixty 
days (of the proposed embargo) in the defence of our mari- 
time frontier and seaports. He replied, pretty consider- 
able preparations would be made. He said New York was 
in a pretty respectable state, but not such as to resist a 
formidable fleet; but that it was not to be expected that 
that kind of war would be carried on." The obvious 
reply was, " We must expect what commonl}" happens in 
wars." "As to the prepared state of the country, the 
President, in case of a declaration, would not feel bound 
to take more than his share of the responsibility. The 
unprepared state of the country was the only reason why 
ulterior measures should be deferred."^ Randolph's recol- 
lections of this interview were challenged by members of 

1 Captains' Letters. Navy Department MSS. 

2 Niles' Register, vol. ii. p. 101. 

3 Aunals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 1593. 



394 THE WAR OF 1812 

tlie Committee in other points, but not in these. The 
Administration had then been in oifice three years, and 
the causes of war had been accumulating for at least 
seven : but so notorious was the unreadiness that a great 
part of the community even now saw onl}' bluster. 

For these reasons the first rush to privateering, although 
feverislily energetic, was of a somewhat extemporized char- 
acter. In consequence of the attempt to elude the em- 
bargo, by a precipitate and extensive export movement, a 
very large part of the merchant ships and seamen were 
now abroad. Hence, in the haste to seize upon enemy's 
shipping, anything that could be sent to sea at quick 
notice was utilized. Vessels thus equipped were rarely 
best fitted for a distant voyage, in which dependence 
must rest upon their own resources, and upon crews 
both numerous and capable. They were therefore neces- 
sarily directed upon commercial highways near at hand, 
which, though not intrinsically richest, nor followed by 
the cargoes that would pay best in the United States, 
could nevertheless adequately reward enterprise. In the 
near vicinity of Halifax the routes from the British West 
Indies to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the St. Law- 
rence, met and crossed the equally important lines of 
travel from the British Islands to the same points. This 
circumstance contributed to the importance of that place 
as a naval and commercial centre, and also focussed about 
it by far the larger part of the effort and excitement of 
the first })rivateering outburst from the United States. 
As Rodgers' bold sortie, and disappearance into the un- 
known witli a strong squadron had forced concentration 
upon the principal British vessels, the cruisers remaining 
for dispersion in search of privateers were numerically in- 
adequate to suppress the many and scattered Americans. 
Before Warren's arrival the prizes reported in the United 
States were one hundred and ninet}^ and they probabh' 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 395 

exceeded two hundred. An analysis of the somewhat im- 
perfect data which accompany these returns indicates that 
about three fourths were seized in the Bay of Fundy and in 
the off -lying waters from thence round to Newfoundland. 
Of the remainder, half, probaljly, were taken in the West 
Indies ; and the rest out in the deep sea, beyond the Gulf 
Stream, upon the first part of the track followed by the 
sugar and coffee traders from the West Indies to England. ^ 
There had not yet been time to hear of prizes taken in 
Europe, to which comparatively few privateers as yet 
went. 

One of the most intelligent and enterprising of the early 
privateers was Commodore Joshua Barney, a veteran of the 
American Navy of the Revolution. He commissioned a 
Baltimore schooner, the "Rossie," at the outbreak of the 
war ; partly, apparently, in order to show a good example 
of patriotic energy, but doubtless also through the prompt- 
ings of a love of adventure, not extinguished by advanc- 
ing years. The double motive kept him an active, useful, 
and distinguished public servant throughout the war. His 
cruise on this occasion, as far as can be gathered from the 
reports,'^ conformed in direction to the quarters in which 
the enemy's merchant ships might most surely be ex- 
pected. Sailing from the Chesapeake July lo, he seems 
to have stood at once outside the Gulf Stream for the 
eastern edge of the Banks of Newfoundland. In the 
ensuing two weeks he was twice chased by an enemy's 
frigate, and not till July 31 did he take his first prize. 
From that day, to and including August 9, he captured 
ten other vessels — eleven in all. Unfortunately, the 
precise locality of each seizure is not given, but it is 
inferable from the general tenor of the accounts that 

1 These data are summarized from Niles' Register, which throughout the 
war collected, and periodically published, lists of prizes. 

- A synopsis of the " Rossie's " log is given in Niles' Register, vol. iii. 
p. 158. 



396 THE WAR OF 1S12 

they were made between the eastern edge of the Great 
Banks and the immediate neighborhood of Halifax; in 
the locality, in fact, to which Hull during those same 
ten days was directing the "Constitution," partly in pur- 
suit of })rizes, equally in search of the enemy's ships of 
war, which were naturally to be sought at those centres of 
movement where their national traders accumulated. 

On August 30 the " Rossie," having run down the Nova 
Scotia coast and passed by George's Bank and Nantucket, 
went into Newport, Rhode Island. It is noticeable that 
before and after those ten days of success, although she 
saw no English vessels, except ships of war cruising on 
the outer approaches of their commerce, she was contin- 
ually meeting and speaking American vessels returning 
home. These facts illustrate the considerations governing 
privateering, and refute the plausible opinion often ad- 
vanced, that it was a mere matter of gambling adventure. 
Thus ^Ir. Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, in a com- 
munication to Congress, said: "The occupation of priva- 
teers is precisel}' of the same species as the lottery, with 
respect to hazard and to the chance of rich prizes." ^ Gal- 
latin approached the subject from the standpoint of the 
financier and with the abstract ideas of the political econo- 
mist. His temporary successor, the Secretary of the Navy, 
Mr. Jones, had been a merchant in active business life, and 
he viewed privateering as a practical business undertaking. 
"The analogy between privateering and lotteries does not 
appear to me to be so strict as the Secretary seems to con- 
sider it. The adventure of a privateer is of the nature of 
a commercial project or speculation, conducted by com- 
mercial men upon principles of mercantile calculation and 
profit. The vessel and her equipment is a matter of great 
expense, which is expected to be remunerated by the prob- 
able chances of profit, after calculating the outfit, insur- 

1 Gallatin, Dec. S, 1812. American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. p. 594. 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1S12 397 

ance, etc., as in a regular mercantile voj-age." ^ Mr. Jones 
would doubtless have admitted what Gallatin alleged, that 
the business was liable to be overdone, as is the case with 
all promising occupations; and that many would engage in 
it without adequate understanding or forethought. 

The elements of risk which enter into privateering are 
doubtless very great, and to some extent baffle calculation. 
In this it only shares the lot common to all warlike enter- 
prise, in which, as the ablest masters of the art repeatedly 
aiiirm, something must be allowed for chance. But it does 
not follow that a reasonable measure of success may not 
fairly be expected, where sagacious appreciation of well- 
known facts controls the direction of effort, and prepara- 
tion is proportioned to the difficulties to be encountered. 
Heedlessness of conditions, or recklessness of dangers, 
defeat effort everywhere, as well as in privateering; nor 
is even the chapter of unforeseen accident confined to mili- 
tary affairs. In 1812 the courses followed by the enemy's 
trade Avere well understood, as were also the character- 
istics of their ships of war, in sailing, distribution, and 
management.'-^ Regaid being had to these conditions, the 
pecuniary venture, which privateering essentially is, was 
sure of fair returns — barring accidents — if the vessels 
were thoroughly well found, with superior speed and 
nautical qualities, and if directed upon the centres of 
ocean travel, such as the approaches to the English 
Channel, or, as before noted, to where great highways 
cross, inducing an accumulation of vessels from several 
quarters. So pursued, privateering can be made pecuni- 
arily successful, as was shown by the increasing number 
and value of prizes as the war went on. It has also a 

1 Jones, July 21, 1813. American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. p. 645. 

- In tiie memoir of Commodore Barney (p. 2.52), published hy liis daugh- 
ter, it is said that, successful though the " Rossie'.s " crui.se was in its issue, he 
■was dissatisfied witli the course laid down for him by his owners, who did 
not understand the usual tracks of British commerce. 



398 THE WAR OF 1S12 

distinct effect as a minor offensive operation, liarassing 
and weakening the enemy; but its merits are more con- 
testable when regarded as by itself alone decisive of great 
issues. Despite the eflicieney and numbers of American 
jirivateers, it was not Britisli commerce, but American, 
that was destroyed by the war. 

From Newport the " Rossie " took a turn through 
another lucrative field of privateering enterprise, the 
Caribbean Sea. Passing by Bermuda, which brought 
her in the track of vessels from the West Indies to Hali- 
fax, she entered the Caribbean at its northeastern corner, 
by the Anegada Passage, near St. Thomas, thence ran 
along the south shore of Porto Rico, coming out by the 
Mona Passage, between Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, 
and so home by the Gulf Stream. In this second voyage 
she made but two prizes; and it is noted in her log book 
that she here met tlie privateer schooner " Rapid " from 
Charleston, fifty-two days out, without taking anything. 
The cause of these small results does not certainl}- appear; 
but it may be presumed that Avith the height of the hur- 
ricane season at hand, most of the West India traders had 
already sailed for Europe. Despite all drawbacks, when 
the " Rossie " returned to Baltimore toward the end of 
October, she had captured or destroyed property roughly 
reckoned at a million and a half, which is probably an 
exaggerated estimate. Two hundred and seventeen pris- 
oners had been taken. 

While the " Rossie " was on her way to the West 
Indies, there sailed from Salem a large privateer called 
the "America," the equipment and operations of which 
illustrated precisely the business conception which at- 
tached to these enterprises in the minds of competent 
business men. This ship-rigged vessel of four hundred 
and seventy-three tons, Ijuilt of course for a mereliant- 
man, was about eight years old when the war broke out» 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 399 

and had just returned from a voyage. Seeing that ordi- 
nary commerce was likely to be a very precarious under- 
taking, her owners spent the months of July and August 
in preparing her deliberately for her new occupation. Her 
upper deck was removed, and sides filled in solid. She 
was given larger yards and loftier spars than before; the 
greatly increased number of men carried by a privateer, 
for fighting and for manning prizes, enabling canvas to be 
handled with greater rapidity and certainty. She received 
a batter}^ of very respectable force for those days, so that 
she could repel the smaller classes of ships of war, which 
formed a large proportion of the enemy's cruisers. Thus 
fitted to fight or run, and having very superior speed, she 
was often chased, but never caught. During the two and 
a half years of war she made four cruises of four months 
each ; taking in all forty-one prizes, twenty-seven of which 
reached port and realized $1,100,000, after deducting ex- 
penses and government charges. As half of this went to 
the ship's compan}-, the owners netted $550,000 for six- 
teen months' active use of the ship. Her invariable cruis- 
ing ground was from tlie English Channel south, to the 
latitude of the Canary Islands. ^ 

The United States having declared war, the Americans 
enjoyed the advantage of the first blow at the enemy's 
trade. The reduced numbers of vessels on the British 
transatlantic stations, and the perplexity induced by 
Rodgers' movement, combined to restrict tlie injury to 
American shipping. A number of jirizes were made, 
doubtless; but as nearly as can be ascertained not over 
seventy American merchant ships were taken in the first 
three months of the war. Of these, thirty-eight are re- 
ported as brought under the jurisdiction of the Vice- 
Admiralty Court at Halifax, and twenty-four as captured 

1 Account of tlie Private Armed Ship "America," by B. B. Crowninshield. 
Essex Institute Historical CoUectious, vol. xxxvii. 



400 77//i WAR OF 1S12 

on the Jamaica station. News of the war not being re- 
ceived by the British squadrons in Europe until early in 
August, only oiie capture there appears before October 1, 
except from the Mediterranean. There Captain Usher on 
September 6 wrote from Gibraltar that all the Americans 
on their way down the Sea — that is, out of the Straits — 
had been taken. ^ In like manner, though with somewhat 
better fortune, thirty or forty American ships from the 
Baltic were driven to take refuge in the neutral Swedish 
port of Gottenburg, and remained war-bound.^ That 
the British cruisers were not inactive in protecting the 
threatened shores and waters of Nova Scotia and the St. 
Lawrence is proved by the seizure of twentj-four Ameii- 
can privateers, between July 1 and August 25 ; ^ a result 
to which the inadequate equipment of these vessels prob- 
ably contributed. But American shipping, upon the 
whole, at first escaped pretty well in the matter of actual 
capture. 

It was not in this way, but by tlie almost total suppres- 
sion of commerce, both coasting and foreign, both neutral 
and American, that the maritime pressure of war was 
brought home to the United States. This also did not 
happen until a comparatively late period. No commer- 
cial blockade was instituted by the enemy before Feb- 
ruary, 1813. Up to that time neutrals, not carrying 
contraband, had free admission to all American ports; 
and the British for their own purposes encouraged a 
licensed trade, wholly illegitimate as far as United States 
ships were concerned, but in which American citizens and 
American vessels were largely engaged, though frequently 
under flaQ-s of other nations, A significant indication of 
the nature of this traflic is found in the export returns of 

1 Naval Cliroiiicle, vol. xxviii. p. 431. 

2 Niles' Ixcgister, vol. iii. p. 320. 

^ Naval Chronicle, vol. xxviii. p. 257. 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 401 

the year ending September 30, 1813. The total value 
of home produce exported was $25,008,1-^2, chiefly flour, 
grain, and other provisions. Of this, $20,536,328 went 
to Spain and Portugal with their colonies; $15,500,000 to 
the Peninsula itself. ^ It was not till October, 1813, when 
the British armies entered France, that this demand fell. 
At the same time Halifax and Canada were being supplied 
with flour from New England; and the common saying 
that the British forces in Canada could not keep the field 
but for supplies sent from the United States was strictly 
true, and has been attested by British commissaries. An 
American in Halifax in November, 1812, wrote home that 
within a fortnight twenty thousand barrels of flour had 
arrived in vessels under Spanish and Swedish flags, chiefly 
from Boston. This sort of unfaithfulness to a national 
cause is incidental to most wars, but rarely amounts to as 
grievous a military evil as in 1812 and 1813, when both 
the Peninsula and Canada were substantially at our mercy 
in this respect. With the fall of Napoleon, and the open- 
ing of Continental resources, such control departed from 
American hands. In the succeeding twelvemonth there 
was sent to the Peninsula less than $5,000,000 worth. 

Warren's impressions of the serious nature of the open- 
ing conflict caused a correspondence between him and the 
Admiralty somewhat controversial in tone. Ten days after 
his arrival he represented the reduced state of the squad- 
ron : " The war assumes a new, as well as more active and 
inveterate aspect than heretofore." Alarming reports were 
being received as to the number of ships of twenty-two 
to thirty-two guns fitting out in American ports, and he 
mentions as significant that the commission of a privateer 
officer, taken in a recaptured vessel, bore the number 318. 
At Halifax he Avas in an atmosphere of rumors and excite- 
ment, fed by frequent communication with eastern ports, 

1 American State Papers, Commerce and Navigatiou, vol. i. p. 992. 
VOL. I. — 26 



402 THE WAR OF 1S12 

as well as by continual experience of captures about the 
neigliboring shores; the enemies' crews even landing at 
times. When he went to Bermuda two months later, so 
many privateers were met on the line of trafific between 
the West Indies and the St. Lawrence as to convince him 
of the number and destructiveness of these vessels, and " of 
the impossibility of our trade navigating these seas unless 
a very extensive squadron is employed to scour the vicin- 
ity." He was crippled for attempting this by the size of 
the American frigates, which forbade his dispersing his 
cruisers. The capture of the " Guerriere " had now been 
followed by that of the "Macedonian;" and in view of 
the results, and of Rodgers being again out, he felt com- 
pelled to constitute squadrons of two frigates and a sloop. 
Under these conditions, and with so many convoys to fur- 
nish, "it is impracticable to cut off the enemy's resources, 
or to repress the disorder and pillage which actually exist 
to a very alarming degree, both on the coast of British 
America and in the West Indies, as will be seen by the 
copies of letters enclosed," from colonial and naval offi- 
cials. He goes on to speak, in terms not carefully 
weighed, of swarms of privateers and letters-of-marque, 
their numbers now amounting to six hundred ; the crews 
of which had landed in many points of his Majesty's 
dominions, and even taken vessels from their anchors in 
British ports. ^ 

The Admiralty, while evidently seeing exaggeration in 
this language, bear witness in their reply to the harass- 
ment caused by the American squadrons and private armed 
ships. They remind the admiral that there are two prin- 
cipal ways of protecting the trade: one by furnishing it 
with convoys, the other by preventing egress from the 
enemy's ports, through adequate force placed before them. 
To disperse vessels over the open sea, along the tracks of 

1 W^arrcn to Croker, Dec. 28 and 29, 1812. Records Office MSS. 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 403 

commerce, though necessary, is but a subsidiary measure. 
His true course is to concentrate a strong division before 
each chief American port, and they intimate dissatisfac- 
tion that this apparently had not yet been done. As a 
matter of fact, up to the spring of 1813, American ships 
of war had little difficulty in getting to sea. Rodgers 
had sailed again with his own squadron and Decatur's 
on October 8, the two separating on the 11th, though 
this was unknown to the British; and Bainbridge fol- 
lowed with the " Constitution " and " Hornet " on the 
26th. Once away, power to arrest their depredations was 
almost wholly lost, through ignorance of their intentions. 
With regard to commerce, they were on the offensive, the 
British on the defensive, with the perplexity attaching to 
the latter role. 

Under the circumstances, the Admiralty betrays some 
impatience with Warren's clamor for small vessels to be 
scattered in defence of the trade and coasts. They re- 
mind him that he has under his flag eleven sail of the 
line, thirty-four frigates, thirty-eight sloops, besides other 
vessels, making a total of ninety -seven ; and yet first 
Rodgers, and then Bainbridge, had got away. True, 
Boston cannot be effectively blockaded from November 
to March, but these two squadrons had sailed in October. 
Even " in the month of December, though it Avas not pos- 
sible perhaps to have maintained a permanent watch on 
that port, yet having, as you state in your letter of 
November 5, precise information that Commodore Bain- 
bridge was to sail at a given time, their Lordships regret 
that it was not deemed practicable to proceed off that 
port at a reasonable and safe distance from the land, and 
to have taken the chance at least of intercepting the 
enemy." "The necessity for sending heavy convoys 
arises from the facility and safety with which the Ameri- 
can navy has hitherto found it possible to put to sea. The 



404 THE WAR OF 1S12 

uiiceitainty in which you have left their Lordships, in re- 
gard to the movements of tlie enemy and the disposition 
of your own force, has obliged them to employ six or 
seven sail of the line and as many frigates and sloops, 
independent of your command, in guarding against the 
possible attempts of the enemy. Captain Prowse, with 
two sail of the line, two frigates, and a sloop, has been 
sent to St. Helena. Rear-Admiral Beauclerk, with two 
of the line, two frigates, and two sloops, is stationed in the 
neighborhood of Madeira and the Azores, lest Commodore 
Bainbridge should liave come into that quarter to take the 
place of Commodore Rodgers, who was retiring from it 
about the time you state Commodore Bainbridge was 
expected to sail. Commodore Owen, who had preceded 
Admiral Beauclerk in this station, with a ship of the line 
and three other vessels, is not yet returned from the cruise 
on which the appearance of the enemy near the Azores 
had obliged their Lordships to send this force ; while the 
* Colossus ' and the ' Elephant ' [ships of the line], with 
the ' Rhin ' and the ' Armide,' are but just returned from 
similar services. Thus it is obvious that, large as the 
force under your orders was, and is, it is not all that 
has been opposed to the Americans, and that these ser- 
vices became necessary only because the chief weight of 
the enemy's force has been employed at a distance from 
your station."^ 

The final words here quoted characterize exactly the 
conditions of the first eight or ten months of the war, 
until the spring of 1813. They also define the purpose 
of the British Government to close the coast of the Tnited 
States in such manner as to minimize the evils of widely 
dispersed commerce-destroying, by confining the American 
vessels as far as possible within their harbors. The Ameri- 

1 Croker to Warren, Jan. 9, Feb. 10, aud March 20, 1813. Kocords Office 
MSS. 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1812 405 

can squadrons and heavy frigates, which menaced not 
commerce only but scattered ships of war as well, were 
to be rigorously shut up by an overwhelming division 
before each port in which they harbored ; and the Admi- 
ralty intimated its wish that a ship of the line should 
always form one of such division. This course of policy, 
initiated when the winter of 1812-13 was over, was thence- 
forth maintained with ever increasing rigor; especially 
after the general peace in Europe, in May, 1814, had 
released the entire British navy. It had two principal 
results. The American frigates were, in the main, suc- 
cessfully excluded from the ocean. Their three successful 
battles were all fought before January 1, 1813. Commo- 
dore John Rodgers, indeed, by observing his own pre- 
cept of clinging to the eastern ports of Newport and 
Boston, did succeed after this in making two cruises with 
the "President; " but entering New York with her on the 
last of these, in February, 1814, she was obliged, in 
endeavoring to get to sea when transferred to Decatur, 
to do so under circumstances so difficult as to cause her 
to ground, and by consequent loss of speed to be over- 
taken and captured by the blockading squadron. Cajjtain 
Stewart reported the " Constitution "' nearly ready for sea, 
at Boston, September 26, 1813. Three months after, he 
wrote the weather had not yet enabled him to escape. On 
December 30, however, she sailed : but returning on 
April 4, the blockaders drove her into Salem, whence she 
could not reach Boston until April 17, 1814, and there 
remained until the 17th of the following December. Her 
last successful battle, under his command, was on Feb- 
ruary 20, 1815, more than two years after she captured 
the "Java." When the war ended the only United 
States vessels on the ocean were the "Constitution," three 
sloops — the "Wasp," "Hornet," and "Peacock " — and 
the brief "Tom Bowline." The smaller vessels of the 



406 ^'^^^' ^y^^^^ OF 1812 

nav}', and the privateers, owing to their much lighter 
draft, got out more readily; but neither singly nor collec- 
tively did they constitute a serious menace to convoys, nor 
to the scattered cruisers of the enemy. These, therefore, 
were perfectly free to pursue their operations without fear 
of surprise. 

On the other hand, because of this concentration along 
the shores of the United States, the vessels that did escape 
went prepared more and more for long absences and dis- 
tant operations. On the sea "the weight of the enemy's 
force," to use again the words of the Admiralty, "was 
employed at a distance from the North American station." 
AVhereas, at the first, most captures by Americans were 
made near the United States, after the spring of 1813 
there is an increasing indication of their being most suc- 
cessfully sought abroad; and during the last nine months 
of the war, w^hen peace prevailed throughout the world 
except between the United States and Great Britain, 
when the Chesapeake was British waters, when Wash- 
ington was being burned and Baltimore threatened, when 
the American invasion of Canada had given place to the 
British invasion of New York, when New Orleans and 
Mobile were both being attacked, — it was the coasts of 
Europe, and the narrow seas over which England had 
claimed immemorial sovereignty, that witnessed the most 
audacious and successful ventures of American cruisers. 
The prizes taken in these quarters were to those on the 
hither side of the Atlantic as two to one. To this con- 
tributed also the commercial blockade, after its extension 
over the entire seaboard of the United States, in April, 
1814. The practically absolute exclusion of American 
commerce from the ocean is testified by the exports of 
1814, which amounted to not quite $7,000,000; ^ whereas 
in 1807, the last full j-ear of unrestricted trade, they had 

1 American State Papers. Commerce aud Navigation, vol. i. p. 1021. 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IX 1812 407 

been $108,000,000.1 Deprived of all their usual employ- 
ments, shipping and seamen were driven to privateering 
to earn any returns at all. 

From these special circumstances, the period from June, 
1812, when the war began, to the end of April, 1813, when 
the departure of winter conditions permitted the renewal 
of local activity on sea and land, had a character of its 
own, favoring the United States on the ocean, which did 
not recur. Some specific account of particular transac- 
tions during these months will serve to illustrate the 
general conditions mentioned. 

When Warren reached Halifax, there were still in 
Boston the " Constitution " and the ships that had re- 
turned with Rodgers on August 31. From these the Navy 
Department now constituted three squadrons. The "Hor- 
net," Captain James Lawrence, detached from Rodgers' 
command, was attached to the "Constitution," in which 
Captain William Bain bridge had succeeded Hull. Bain- 
bridge's squadron was to be composed of these two vessels 
and tlie smaller 32-gun frigate "Essex," Captain David 
Porter, then lying in the Delaware. Rodgers retained 
his own ship, the ''President," with the frigate "Con- 
gress ; " while to Decatur was continued the " United 
States " and the brig "Argus." These detachments were 
to act separately under their several commodores ; but as 
Decatur's preparations were only a few days behind those 
of Rodgers, the latter decided to wait for him, and on 
Octoljer 8 the two sailed in company, for mutual support 
until outside the lines of enemies, in case of meeting with 
a force superior to either singly. 

In announcing his departure, Rodgers wrote the De- 
partment that he expected the British would be dis- 
tributed in divisions, off the ports of the coast, and that 
if reliable information reached him of any such exposed 

1 American State Papers. Commerce and Navigation, vol. i. p. 718. 



408 THE WAR OF 1812 

detachment, it would he his duty to seek it. "I feel a 
confidence that, with prudent policy, we shall, barring 
unforeseen accidents, not only annoy their commerce, but 
embarrass and perplex the commanders of their public 
ships, equally to the advantage of our commerce and 
the disadvantage of theirs." Warren and the Admiralty 
alike have borne witness to the accuracy of this judg- 
ment. Rodgers was less happy in another forecast, in 
which he reflected that of his countrymen generally. 
As regards the reported size of British re -enforcements to 
America, " I do not feel confidence in them, as I cannot 
convince myself that their resources, situated as England 
is at present, are equal to the maintenance of such a force 
on this side of the Atlantic ; and at any rate, if such an 
one do appear, it will Ije only with a view to bull3-ing us 
into such a peace as may suit their interests." ^ The Com- 
modore's words reflected often an animosity, personal as 
well as national, aroused by the liberal abuse bestowed 
on him by British writers. 

On October 11 Decatur's division parted company, the 
" President " and " Congress " continuing together and 
steering to the eastward. On the loth the two ships 
captured a British packet, the "Swallow," from Jamaica 
to Falmouth, having $100,000 to $200,000 specie on 
board; and on the 31st, in longitude 32° west, latitude 
33° north, two hundred and forty miles south of the 
Azores, a Pacific whaler on her homeward voyage was 
taken. These two incidents indicate the general direc- 
tion of the course held, which was continued to longi- 
tude 22° west, latitude 17° north, the neighborhood of 
the Cape Verde group. This confirms the information 
of the British Admiralty that Rodgers M'as cruising be- 
tween the Azores and ^Madeira ; and it will be seen that 
Bainbridge, as they feared, followed in Rodgers' w^ake, 

1 Captains' Letters. Navy Department, Oct. .3, 1812. 




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MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN ISIS 409 

though with a different ulterior destination. The ground 
indeed was well chosen to intercept homeward trade from 
the East Indies and South America. Returning, the two 
frigates ran west in latitude 17°, with the trade wind, as 
far as longitude 50°, whence they steered north, passing 
one hundred and twenty miles east of Bermuda. In his 
report to the Navy Department Rodgers said that he had 
sailed almost eleven thousand miles, making the circuit 
of nearly the whole western Atlantic. In this extensive 
sweep he had seen only five enemy's merchant vessels, tw(j 
of which were captured. The last four weeks, practically 
the entire month of December, had been spent upon the 
line between Halifax and Bermuda, without meeting a 
single enemy's ship. From this he concluded that "their 
trade is at present infinitely more limited than people 
imagine." 1 In fact, however, the experience indicated 
that the British officials were rigorously enforcing the 
Convoy Law, according to the "positive directions," and 
warnings of penalties, issued by the Government. A 
convoy is doubtless a much larger object than a single 
ship; but vessels thus concentrated in place and in time 
are more apt to pass wholly unseen than the same number 
sailing independently, and so scattered over wide expanses 
of sea. 

Shortl}' before his return Rodgers arrested and sent in 
an American vessel, from Baltimore to Lisbon, with flour, 
sailing inider a protection from the British admiral at Hali- 
fax. This was a frequent incident with L^nited States 
cruisers, national or private, at this time; Decatur, for 
example, the day after leaving Rodgers, reported meeting 
an American ship having on board a number of licenses 
from the British Government to American citizens, grant- 
ing them protection in transporting grain to Spain and 

1 Captaius' Letters. Navy Department, Dec. 31, 1812, aud Jan. 2, 
1813. 



410 THE WAR OF 1812 

Portugal. The license was issued by a British consular 
oflicer, and ran thus : ^ 

"To the commanders of His Majesty's ships of Avar, or of 
private armed ships belonging to subjects of llis Majesty. 

"Whereas, from the consideration of the great importance 
of continuing a regular supply of flour and other dried pro- 
visions, to the allied armies in Spain and Portugal, it has been 
deemed expedient by His Majesty's Government that, notwith- 
standing the hostilities now existing between Great Britain and 
the United States, every degree of encouragement and protec- 
tion should be given to American vessels laden with flour and 
other dry provisions, and bona fide bound to Spain or Portugal, 
and whereas, in furtherance of the views of His Majesty's 
Government, Herbert Sawyer, Esq., Vice Admiral and com- 
mander-in-chief on the Halifax station, has addressed to me 
a letter under the date of the 5th of August, 1812 (a copy 
whereof is hereunto annexed) wherein I am instructed to fur- 
nish a copy of his letter certified under my consular seal to 
every American vessel so laden and bound, destined to serve as 
a perfect safeguard and protection of such vessel in the prose- 
cution of her voyage: Now, therefore, in obedience to these 

instructions, I have granted to the American ship , , 

Master," etc. 

To this was appended the following letter of instruc- 
tions from Admiral Sawyer: 

" "Whereas Mr. Andrew Allen, His Majesty's Consul at Bos- 
ton, has recommended to me Mr. Robert PLlwell, a merchant of 
that place, and well inclined toward the British Interest, who is 
desirous of sending |)rovisions to Spain and Portugal for the 
use of tlie allied armies in the Peninsula, and whereas I think 
it lit and necessary that encouragement and protection should 
be afforded him in so doing, 

"These are therefore to require and direct all captains .-uul 

1 From the file of Ciiptaiiis' Letters, Jan. 1, 1813. Found in tlie American 
licensed brig "Julia," captured by United States frigate " Cliesapeake," 
Cai)taiu Samuel Evans. The vessel was condemned in the United States 
Courts 



MARITIME OCCURRENCES IN 1813 411 

commanders of His Majesty's ships and vessels of war which 
may fall in with any American or other vessel bearing a neutral 
flag, laden with flour, bread, corn, and pease, or any other 
species of dry provisions, bound from America to Spain or 
Portugal, and having this protection on board, to suffer her to 
proceed without unnecessary obstruction or detention in her 
voyage, provided she shall appear to be steering a due course 
for those countries, and it being understood this is only to be 
in force for one voyage and within six months from the date 
hereof. 

^ Given under my hand and seal on board His Majesty's 
Ship ' Centurion,' at Halifax this fourth day of August, one 
thousand eight hundred and twelve. 

" (Sig.) H. Sa-vvi-er, Vice Admiral." 

This practice soon became perfectly known to the 
American Government, copies being found not only on 
board vessels stopped for carrying them, but in seaports. 
Nevertheless, it went on, apparently tolerated, or at least 
winked at; although, to say the least, the seamen thus 
employed in sustaining the enemies' armies were needed 
by the state. ^ When the commercial blockade of the 
Chesapeake was enforced in February, 1813, and Admiral 
"Warren announced that licenses would no longer enable 
vessels to pass, flour in Baltimore fell two dollars a barrel. 
The blockade being then limited to the Chesapeake and 
Delaware, the immediate effect was to transfer this lucra- 
tive traffic further north, favoring that portion of the 
country which was considered, in the common parlance 
of the British official of that day, " well inclined towards 
British interests." 

On October 13, two days after Rodgers and Decatur 
parted at sea, the United States sloop of war "Wasp," 

1 Besides the obvious impropriety, the practice was expressly forl)ic]den by 
law. It was reprobated in strong terms by Justice Joseph Story, of Massa- 
chusetts, of the Supreme Court of the Uuited States, aftirniiug the condemna- 
tion of the " Julia." His judgment is given in full in Niles' Kegister, vol. iv. 
pp. 393-397. 



412 THE WAR OF 1S12 

Captain Jacob Jones, left the Capes of the Dehiware on. 
a cruise, steering to the eastward. On the 16th, in a 
heavy gale of wind, slie lost her jib-boom. At half -past 
eleven in the night of the 17th, being then in latitude 37*^ 
north, longitude 05° west, between four and five hundred 
miles east of the Chesapeake, in the track of vessels bound 
to Europe from the (julf of Mexico, half a dozen large sail 
were seen passing. These were part of a convoy which 
had left the Bay of Honduras September 12, on their 
wa}- to England, under guard of the British brig of war 
"Frolic," Captain Whinyates. Jones, unable in the dark 
to distinguish their force, took a position some miles to 
Avindward, whence he could still see and follow their 
motions. In the morning each saw the other, and 
Whinyates, properly concerned for his charges chiefly, 
directed them to proceed under all sail on their easterly 
course, while he allowed the " Frolic " to drop astern, at the 
same time hoisting Spanish colors to deceive the stranger; 
a ruse prompted by his having a few days before passed 
a Spanish fleet convoyed by a brig resembling his own. 

It still blowing strong from the westward, with a heavy 
sea, Captain Jones, being to windward, and so having the 
choice of attacking, first put his ship under close- reefed 
topsails, and then stood down for tlie "Frolic," wliich 
hauled to the wind on the port tack — that is, witli the 
wind on the left side — to await the enemy. The British 
brig was under the disadvantage of having lost her main- 
yard in the same gale that cost the American her jib-boom; 
she was therefore unable to set any square sail on the rear- 
most of her two masts. The sail called the boom main- 
sail in jjart remedied this, so far as enabling the brig ta 
keep side to wind ; but, being a low sail, it did not steady 
her as well as a square topsail would have done in the 
heavy sea lunning, a condition which makes accurate aim 
more difficidt. 



THE "TF/LS-P" AND THE '^FROLIC 413 

The action did not begin until the " Wasp " was within 
sixty yards of the "Frolic." Then the hitter opened fire, 
which the American quickly returned; the two running 
side by side and gradually closing. The IJritish crew 
fired much the more rapidly, a circumstance which their 
captain described as "superior fire;" in this reproducing 
the illusion under which Captain Dacres labored during 
the first part of his fight with the "Constitution." "The 
superior fire of our guns gave every reason to expect a 
speedy termination in our favor," wrote Whinyates in his 
ofiicial report. Dacres before his Court Martial asked of 
two witnesses, " Did you understand it was not my inten- 
tion to board whilst the masts stood, in consequence of 
our superior fire and their great number of men? " That 
superior here meant quicker is established by tlie reply 
of one of these witnesses: "Our fire was a great deal 
quicker than the enemy's." Superiority of fire, how- 
ever, consists not only in rapidity, but in liitting; and 
while with very big ships it may be possible to realize 
Nelson's maxim, that by getting close missing becomes 
impossible, it is not the same with smaller vessels in 
turbulent motion. It was thought on board the " Wasp " 
that the enemy fired thrice to her twnce, but the direction 
of their shot was seen in its effects ; the American, losing 
within ten minutes her maintopmast with its yard, the 
mizzen-topgallant-mast, and spanker gaff. Within twenty 
minutes most of the running rigging was also shot away, 
so as to leave the ship largely unmanageable ; but she had 
only five killed and five wounded. In other words, the 
enemy's, shot flew high; and, while it did the damage 
mentioned, it inflicted no vital injury. The "Wasp," 
on the contrary, as evidently fired low; for the loss of 
the boom mainsail was the only serious harm received by 
the " Frolic's " motive power during the engagement, and 
when her masts fell, immediately after it, the}- Avent close 



414 'i'lIE WAR OF 1812 

to the deck. Her loss in men, fifteen killed and forty- 
three wonnded, tells the same story of aiming low. 

The "Frolic " having gone into action without a main- 
j-ard, the loss of the boom mainsail left her unmanageable 
and decided the action. The "Wasp," though still under 
control, was but little better off; for she was unable to 
handle her head yards, the maintopmast having fallen 
across the head braces. There is little reason therefore to 
credit a contemporary statement of her wearing twice be- 
fore boarding. Neither captain mentions further manoeu- 
vring, and Jones' words, "We gradually lessened the 
space till w^e laid her on board," probably express the 
exact sequence. As they thus closed, the " Wasp's " 
greater remaining sail and a movement of her helm would 
effect what followed: the British vessel's bowsprit coming 
between the main and the mizzen rigging of her opponent, 
who thus grappled her in a position favorable for raking. 
A broadside or two, preparatory for boarding, followed, 
and ended the battle ; for when the Americans leaped on 
board there was no resistance. In view of the vigorous 
previous contest, this shows a ship's company decisively 
beaten. 1 

Under the conditions of wind and weather, this engage- 
ment may fairly be descril)ed as an artillery duel between 
two vessels of substantially equal force. James' con- 
tention of inferior numbers in the " Frolic " is true in the 
letter; but the greater rapidity of her firing shows it ir- 
relevant to the issue. The want of the mainyard, which 
means tlie lack of the maintopsail, was a more substan- 
tial disadvantage. So long as the boom mainsail held, 
however, it was fairly offset by the fall of the " Wasp's " 
maintopmast and its consequences. Both vessels carried 
sixteen 32 -pounder carronades, which gave a broadside of 

1 Captain Jones' Report of tiiis action can be found in Niles' Register, vol. 
iii. p. 217 ; that of Captain Whinyates in Naval Clironicle, vol. xxix. p. 76. 



THE ''WASP" AND THE ''FROLIC 415 

two lumclred and fifty -six pounds. The " Wasp " liad, 
besides, two 12-pounder long guns. The British naval 
historian James states that the " Frolic " had in addition 
to her main battery only two long sixes; but Captain 
Jones gives her six 12-pounders, claiming that she was 
therefore superior to the " Wasp " by four 12-pounders. 
As we are not excusing a defeat, it may be sufficient to 
say that the fight was as nearly equal as it is given to 
such affairs to be. The action lasted forty-three minutes; 
the " Frolic " hauling down her colors shortly after noon. 
Almost immediately afterward the British seventy-four 
" Poictiers " came in sight, and in the disabled condition 
of the two combatants overhauled them easily. Two hours 
later she took possession of both "Wasp" and "Frolic," 
and carried them into Bermuda. The " Wasp " was added 
to the British navy under the name of "Loup Cervier" 
(Lynx). 

When Rodgers and Decatur separated, on October 11, 
the former steered rather easterly, while the latter diverged 
to the southward as well as east, accompanied by the 
"Argus." These two did not remain long together. It 
is perhaps worth noticing by the way, that Rodgers ad- 
hered to his idea of co-operation between ships, keeping 
his two in company throughout; whereas Decatur, when 
in control, illustrated in practice his preference for sepa- 
rate action. The brig proceeded to Cape St. Roque, the 
easternmost point of Brazil, and thence along the north 
coast of South America, as far as Surinam. From there 
she passed to the eastward of the West India Islands and 
so toward home ; remaining out as long as her stores jus- 
tified, cruising in the waters between Halifax, Bermuda, 
and the Continent. These courses, as those of the other 
divisions, are given as part of the maritime action, con- 
ducive to understanding the general character of effort 
put forth by national and other cruisers. Of these four 



416 THE WAR OF 1812 

ships that sailed together, the " Argus " alone encountered 
any considerable force of the enemy; falling in with a 
squadron of six liritisli vessels, two of them of the line, 
soon after parting with the " United States." She escaped 
by her better sailing. Her entire absence from the country 
was ninety-six days. 

Decatur with the " United States " kept away to the 
southeast until October 25. At daybreak of that da}' 
the frigate was in latitude 29° north, longitude 29° 30' 
west, steering southwest on the port tack, with the wind 
at south-southeast. Soon after daylight there was sighted 
a large sail bearing about south-southwest; or, as seamen 
say, two points on the weather bow. She was already 
heading as nearly as the wind permitted in the direction 
of the stranger; but the latter, which proved to be the 
British frigate "Macedonian,"' Caj^tain John S. Garden, 
having the wind free, changed her course for the " United 
States," taking care withal to preserve the windward posi- 
tion, cherislied by the seamen of that day. In this re- 
spect conditions differed from those of the " Constitution " 
and " Guerriere, " for there the American was to wind- 
ward. Contrary also to the case of the "Wasp" and 
"Frolic," the interest of the approaching contest turns 
largely on the manoeuvres of the antagonists; for, the 
" United States " being fully fifty per cent stronger than 
the " Macedonian " in artillery power, it was only by util- 
izing the advantage of her windward position, b}^ judi- 
cious choice of the method of attack, that the British ship 
could hope for success. She had in her favor also a de- 
cided superiority of speed ; and, being just from England 
after a period of refit, was in excellent sailing trim. 

When first visible to each other from the mastheads, 
the vessels were some twelve miles apart. They con- 
tinued to approach until 8.30, when the "United States," 
being then about three miles distant, wore — turned round 



'' MACEDONIAN'' AND ^^ UNITED STATES'' 417 

— standing on the other tack. Her colors, previously con- 
cealed by her sails, were by this manoeuvre sliown to the 
British frigate, which was thus also placed in the position 
of steering for the quarter of her opponent; the latter 
heading nearer the wind, and inclining gradually to cross 
the " Macedonian's " bows (1). When this occurred, a con- 
versation was going on between Captain Garden, liis first 
lieutenant, and the master; i the latter being the officer 
who usually worked the ship in battle, under directions 
from the captain. These officers had been in company 
with the " United States " the year before in Chesapeake 
Bay; and, whether they now recognized her or not, they 
knew the weight of battery carried by the heavy Ameri- 
can frigates. The question under discussion by them, 
before the " United States " wore, was whether it was 
best to steer direct upon the approaching enemy, or to 
keep farther away for a time, in order to maintain the 
windward position. By the first lieutenant's testimony 
before the Court, this was in his opinion the decisive 
moment, victory or defeat hinging upon the resolution 
taken. He favored attempting to cross the enemj^'s bows, 
which was possible if the " United States " should con- 
tinue to stand as she at the moment was — ■ on the port 
tack ; but in any event to close with the least delay j)os- 
sible. The master appears to have preferred to close by 
going under the enemy's stern, and hauling up to lee- 
ward; but Captain Carden, impressed both with the ad- 
vantage of the weather gage and the danger of approaching 
exposed to a raking fire, thought better to haul nearer the 
wind, on the tack he was already on, the starboard, but 
without bracing the yards, which were not sharp. His aim 
was to pass the " United States " at a distance, wear — 
turn round from the wind, toward her — when clear of 
her broadside, and so come up from astern without being 

1 Macedonian Court Martial. British Records Office MSS. 
VOL. I. — 27 



418 ^V/£ WAR OF 1812 

raked. The interested reader may compare this method 
with that pursued by Hull, who steered down by zigzag 
courses. The Court Martial censured Garden's decision, 
which was clearly wrong, for the power of heavy guns 
over lighter, of the Ameiican 24"s over the British 18's, 
was greatest at a distance; therefore, to close rapidly, 
taking the chances of being raked — if not avoidable by 
yawing — was the smaller risk. Moreover, wearing be- 
hind the "United States," and then pursuing, gave her the 
o| p )rtunity which she used, to fire and keep away again, 
prolonging still farther the period of slow approach which 
Garden first chose. 

The " United States " wearing, while this conversation 
was in progress, precipitated Garden's action. He inter- 
preted the raanceuvre as indicating a wish to get to wind- 
ward, which the "Macedonian's" then course, far off the 
wind, would favor. He therefore hurriedly gave the order 
to haul up (2), cutting adrift the topmast studdingsail; a 
circumstance which to seamen will explain exactl}' the rela- 
tive situations. That he had rightly interpreted Decatur's 
purpose seems probable, for in fifteen or twenty minutes 
the " United States " again wore («), resuming her original 
course, by the wind on the port tack, the " iMacedonian " 
continuing on the starboard; the two now running on 
lines nearly parallel, in opposite directions {h h). As 
they passed, at the distance of almost a mile, the Ameri- 
can frigate discharged her main-deck battery, her spar- 
deck carronades not ranging so far. The British ship 
did not reply, but shortly afterward wore (<?), and, head- 
ing now in the same general direction as the " United 
States," steered to come up on her port side. She thus 
reached a position not directly behind her antagonist, but 
well to tlic left, apparently about half a mile away. So 
situated, if steering the same course, each ship could train 
its batteries on the opponent; but the increased advantage 



U United States 

M Macedonian (shaded) 

a, b^c, etc., synchronous positions. 

For 1 and 2, see text 



Daylight 



,^U 




Daylight 



PLAN OF THE ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN THE 
UNITED STATES AND MACEDONIAN 



''MACEDOXIAN" AXD ^'UNITED STATES'' 419 

at a clistance was with the heavier guns, and when tlie 
"Macedonian," to get near, headed more toward tlie 
"United States," most of hers ceased to bear, while 
those of her enemy continued their fire. A detailed 
description of the "United States \s " niano'uvi-es by her 
own oihcers has not been transmitted ; but in the search- 
ing investigation made by Garden's Court Martial we have 
them probably well preserved. The master of the British 
ship stated that when the " Macedonian " wore in chase, the 
" United States " first kept off before the wind, and then 
almost immediately came back to it as before (f), bringing 
it abeam, and immediately began firing. By thus in- 
creasing her lateral distance from the line of the enemy's 
approach, she was able more certainly to train her guns 
on him. After about fifteen minutes of this, the "Mace- 
donian " suffering severely, her foresail was set to close (e); 
upon which the "United States," hauling out the spanker 
and letting fly the jib-sheet, came up to the wind and 
backed her mizzen-topsail, in order not to move too fast 
from the advantageous position she had, yet to keep way 
enough to command the ship (^). 

Under these unhappy conditions the " Macedonian " 
reached within half musket-shot, which was scarcel}^ the 
ideal close action of the day; but by that time she had lost 
her mizzen-topmast, mainyard, and maintopsail, most of 
her standing rigging was shot away, the lower masts badly 
wounded, and almost all her carronade battery, the prin- 
cipal reliance for close action, was disabled. She had also 
many killed and wounded; while the only visible damage 
on board the "United States " was the loss of the mizzen- 
topgallant-mast, a circumstance of absolutely no moment 
at the time. In short, although she continued to fight 
manfully for a half-hour more, the "Macedonian," when 
she got alongside the "United States," was already beaten 
beyond hope. At the end of the half-hour her fore and 



420 ^^^HE WAR OF 1S12 

main topmasts fell, upon which the "United States" filled 
her mizzen-topsail and shot ahead, crossing the bows of 
the "^Macedonian," 1 and thus ending the fight. Surprise 
was felt on board the British vessel that a raking broad- 
side was not at this moment poured in, and it was even 
believed by some that the American was now abandoning 
the contest. She was so, in the sense that the contest 
was over; a ship with all her spars standing, "in perfect 
condition," to use the expression of the enemy's first 
lieutenant, would be little less than brutal to use her 
power upon one reduced to lower masts, unless submission 
was refused. Upon her return an hour later, the " Mace- 
donian's " mizzenmast had gone overboard, and her colors 
were hauled down as the " United States " drew near. 

This action was fought by the " United States " with 
singular wariness, not to say caution. Her change to the 
starboard tack, when still some three miles distant, seems 
to indicate a desire to get the weather gage, as the " Mace- 
donian " was then steering free. It was so interpreted on 
board tlie British vessel ; but as Garden also at once hauled 
up, it became apparent that he would not yield the advan- 
tage of the wind which he had, and which it was in his 
choice to keep, for the " United States " was a lumbering 
sailer. Decatur, unable to obtain the position for attack- 
ing, at once wore again, and thenceforth played the game 
of the defensive with a skill which his enemy's mistake 
seconded. By the movements of his ship the "Mace- 
donian's " closing was protracted, and she was kept at the 
distance and bearincj most favorable to the American guns. 
But when her foresail was set, the "United States," by 
luffing rapidly to the wind — flowing the jib-sheet and 
hauling out the spanker to hasten this movement — and 

^ James states that this was in order to fill fresh cartridf^es, which is likely 
enoui;Ii ; but it is most improbable that the movement was deferred till the 
last cartridge ready was exhausted — that the battery could not have been fired 
when crossing the bows. 




CAPTAIN STEPHEN DECATUR. 

From the pninling by Gilbert Stuart in Independence Hall, Philndelphi 



''MACEDONIAN'' AND "UNITED STATES" 421 

at the same time backing the mizzen-topsail to steady her 
motions and position, was constituted a moving platform 
of guns, disposed in the very best manner to aunihihite an 
opponent obliged to approach at a pretty broad angle. 

This account, summarized from the sworn testimony 
before the British court, is not irreconcilable with De- 
catur's remark, that the enemy being to windward en- 
gaged at his own distance, to the greatness of which was 
to be ascribed the unusual length of the action. Imbued 
with the traditions of their navy, the actions of the 
" United States " puzzled the British extremely. Her 
first wearing was interpreted as running away, and her 
shooting ahead when the "Macedonian's" topmasts fell, 
crossing her bows without pouring a murderous broadside 
into a beaten ship, coupled with the jDrevious impression 
of wariness, led them to think that the American was 
using the bad luck by which alone they could have been 
beaten, in order to get away. Three cheers were given, 
as though victorious in repelling an attack. They had 
expected, so the testimony ran, to have her in an hour.^ 
Judged by this evidence, the handling of the "United 
States " was thoroughly skilful. Though he probably 
knew himself superior in force, Decatur's object neces- 
sarily should be to take his opponent at the least possible 
injury to his own ship. She was "on a cruise"; hence 
haste was no object, while serious damage might cripple 
her further operations. The result was, by his official 
statement, that "the damage sustained was not such as 
to render return to port necessary; and 1 should have 
continued her cruise, had I not deemed it important that 
we should see our prize in."^ 

In general principle, the great French Admiral Tour- 
ville correctly said that the best victories are those which 

1 " Macedonian " Court Martial. 

2 Decatur's Report. ]S^iles' Register, vol. iii. p. 253. 



422 THE WAR OF 1812 

cost least in blood, timber, and iron ; but, in the particu- 
lar instance before us, Decatur's conduct may rest its 
absolute professional justitication on the testimon}- of the 
master of the British sliip and two of her three lieuten- 
ants. To the question whether closing more rapidly by 
the "Macedonian" would have changed the result, the 
first lieutenant replied he thought there was a chance of 
success. The others differed from liim in this, but agreed 
that their position would have been more favorable, and 
the enemy have suffered more.^ Garden himself had no 
hesitation as to the need of getting near, but only as to 
the method. To avoid this was therefore not only fitting, 
but the bounden duty of the American captain. His busi- 
ness was not merely to make a brilliant display of courage 
and efficiency, but to do the utmost injury to the oppo- 
nent at the least harm to his ship and men. It was the 
more notable to find this trait in Decatur ; for not only had 
he shown headlong valor before, but when offered the new 
American " Guerriere " a 3'ear later, he declined, saying 
that she was overmatched by a seventy-four, while no 
frigate could lie alongside of her. "There was no repu- 
tation to be made in this. " ^ 

The " United States " and her prize, after repairing 
damages sufficientl}^ for a winter arrival upon the Ameri- 
can coast, started thither; the "United States" reaching 
New London December 4, the " Macedonian," from weather 
conditions, putting into Newport. Both soon afterward 
went to New York by Long Island Sound. It is some- 
what remarkable that no one of Warren's rapidly increas- 
ing fleet should have been sighted by either. There Avas 
as yet no commercial blockade, and this, coupled with the 
numbers of American vessels protected by licenses, and 
the fewness of the American shi2)s of w-ar, may have in- 

1 " Macedonian " Court Martial. 

2 Captains' Letters, April 9, 1814. Navy Department MSS. 



'^ MACEDONIAN" AND '^ UNITED STATES" 423 

disposed the admiral and his officers to watch very closely 
ail inhospitable shore, at a season unpropitioiis to active 
operations. Besides, as appears from letters already 
quoted, the commander-in-chief's personal predilection 
was more for the defensive than the offensive ; to pro- 
tect British trade by cruisers patrolling its routes, rather 
than by preventing egress from the hostile ports. 



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